THE OLD WOMAN TALKS OF SORROWS, THE YOUNG WOMAN DREAMS OF LOVE; THE
COURTIER FLIES FROM PRESENT POWER TO REMEMBRANCES OF PAST HOPES, AND
THE WORLD-BETTERED OPENS UTOPIA, WITH A VIEW OF THE GIBBET FOR THE
SILLY SAGE HE HAS SEDUCED INTO HIS SCHEMES,--SO, EVER AND EVERMORE,
RUNS THE WORLD AWAY!
The old lady looked up from her embroidery-frame, as Sibyll sat musing
on a stool before her; she scanned the maiden with a wistful and
somewhat melancholy eye.
"Fair girl," she said, breaking a silence that had lasted for some
moments, "it seems to me that I have seen thy face before. Wert thou
never in Queen Margaret's court?"
"In childhood, yes, lady."
"Do you not remember me, the dame of Longueville?" Sibyll started in
surprise, and gazed long before she recognized the features of her
hostess; for the dame of Longueville had been still, when Sibyll was a
child at the court, renowned for matronly beauty, and the change was
greater than the lapse of years could account for. The lady smiled
sadly: "Yes, you marvel to see me thus bent and faded. Maiden, I lost
my husband at the battle of St. Alban's, and my three sons in the
field of Towton. My lands and my wealth have been confiscated to
enrich new men; and to one of them--one of the enemies of the only
king whom Alice de Longueville will acknowledge--I owe the food for my
board and the roof for my head. Do you marvel now that I am so
changed?"
Sibyll rose and kissed the lady's hand, and the tear that sparkled on
its surface was her only answer.
"I learn," said the dame of Longueville, "that your father has an
order from the Lord Hastings to see King Henry. I trust that he will
rest here as he returns, to tell me how the monarch-saint bears his
afflictions. But I know: his example should console us all." She
paused a moment, and resumed, "Sees your father much of the Lord
Hastings?"
"He never saw him that I weet of," answered Sibyll, blushing; "the
order was given, but as of usual form to a learned scholar."
"But given to whom?" persisted the lady. "To--to me," replied Sibyll,
falteringly. The dame of Longueville smiled.
"Ah, Hastings could scarcely say no to a prayer from such rosy lips.
But let me not imply aught to disparage his humane and gracious heart.
To Lord Hastings, next to God and his saints, I owe all that is left
to me on earth. Strange that he is not yet here! This is the usual
day and hour on which he comes, from pomp and pleasurement, to visit
the lonely widow." And, pleased to find an attentive listener to her
grateful loquacity, the dame then proceeded, with warm eulogies upon
her protector, to inform Sibyll that her husband had, in the first
outbreak of the Civil War, chanced to capture Hastings, and, moved by
his valour and youth, and some old connections with his father, Sir
Leonard, had favoured his escape from the certain death that awaited
him from the wrath of the relentless Margaret. After the field of
Towton, Hastings had accepted one of the manors confiscated from the
attainted House of Longueville, solely that he might restore it to the
widow of the fallen lord; and with a chivalrous consideration, not
contented with beneficence, he omitted no occasion to show to the
noblewoman whatever homage and respect might soothe the pride, which,
in the poverty of those who have been great, becomes disease. The
loyalty of the Lady Longueville was carried to a sentiment most rare
in that day, and rather resembling the devotion inspired by the later
Stuarts. She made her home within the precincts of the Tower, that,
morning and eve, when Henry opened his lattice to greet the rising and
the setting sun, she might catch a dim and distant glance of the
captive king, or animate, by that sad sight, the hopes and courage of
the Lancastrian emissaries, to whom, fearless of danger, she scrupled
not to give counsel, and, at need, asylum.
While Sibyll, with enchanted sense, was listening to the praise of
Hastings, a low knock at the door was succeeded by the entrance of
that nobleman himself. Not to Elizabeth, in the alcoves of Shene, or
on the dais of the palace hall, did the graceful courtier bend with
more respectful reverence than to the powerless widow, whose very
bread was his alms; for the true high-breeding of chivalry exists not
without delicacy of feeling, formed originally by warmth of heart; and
though the warmth may lose its glow, the delicacy endures, as the
steel that acquires through heat its polish retains its lustre, even
when the shine but betrays the hardness.
"And how fares my noble lady of Longueville? But need I ask? for her
cheek still wears the rose of Lancaster. A companion? Ha! Mistress
Warner, I learn now how much pleasure exists in surprise!"
"My young visitor," said the dame, "is but an old friend; she was one
of the child-maidens reared at the court of Queen Margaret."
"In sooth!" exclaimed Hastings; and then, in an altered tone, he
added, "but I should have guessed so much grace had not come all from
Nature. And your father has gone to see the Lord Henry, and you rest,
here, his return? Ah, noble lady, may you harbour always such
innocent Lancastrians!" The fascinations of this eminent person's
voice and manner were such that they soon restored Sibyll, to the ease
she had lost at his sudden entrance. He conversed gayly with the old
dame upon such matters of court anecdote as in all the changes of
state were still welcome to one so long accustomed to court air; but
from time to time he addressed himself to Sibyll, and provoked replies
which startled herself--for she was not yet well aware of her own
gifts--by their spirit and intelligence.
"You do not tell us," said the Lady Longueville, sarcastically, "of
the happy spousailles of Elizabeth's brother with the Duchess of
Norfolk,--a bachelor of twenty, a bride of some eighty-two. [The old
chronicler justly calls this a "diabolical marriage." It greatly
roused the wrath of the nobles and indeed of all honourable men, as a
proof of the shameless avarice of the queen's family.] Verily, these
alliances are new things in the history of English royalty. But when
Edward, who, even if not a rightful king, is at least a born
Plantagenet, condescended to marry Mistress Elizabeth, a born
Woodville, scarce of good gentleman's blood, naught else seems strange
enough to provoke marvel."
"As to the last matter," returned Hastings, gravely, "though her grace
the queen be no warm friend to me, I must needs become her champion
and the king's. The lady who refused the dishonouring suit of the
fairest prince and the boldest knight in the Christian world thereby
made herself worthy of the suit that honoured her; it was not
Elizabeth Woodville alone that won the purple. On the day she mounted
a throne, the chastity of woman herself was crowned."
"What!" said the Lady Longueville, angrily, "mean you to say that
there is no disgrace in the mal-alliance of kite and falcon, of
Plantagenet and Woodville, of high-born and mud-descended?"
"You forget, lady, that the widow of Henry the Fifth, Catherine of
Valois, a king's daughter, married the Welsh soldier, Owen Tudor; that
all England teems with brave men born from similar spousailles, where
love has levelled all distinctions, and made a purer hearth, and
raised a bolder offspring, than the lukewarm likings of hearts that
beat but for lands and gold. Wherefore, lady, appeal not to me, a
squire of dames, a believer in the old Parliament of Love; whoever is
fair and chaste, gentle and loving, is, in the eyes of William de
Hastings, the mate and equal of a king!"
Sibyll turned involuntarily as the courtier spoke thus, with animation
in his voice, and fire in his eyes; she turned, and her breath came
quick; she turned, and her look met his, and those words and that look
sank deep into her heart; they called forth brilliant and ambitious
dreams; they rooted the growing love, but they aided to make it holy;
they gave to the delicious fancy what before it had not paused, on its
wing, to sigh for; they gave it that without which all fancy sooner or
later dies; they gave it that which, once received in a noble heart,
is the excuse for untiring faith; they gave it,--HOPE!
"And thou wouldst say," replied the lady of Longueville, with a
meaning smile, still more emphatically--"thou wouldst say that a
youth, brave and well nurtured, ambitious and loving, ought, in the
eyes of rank and pride, to be the mate and equal of--"
"Ah, noble dame," interrupted Hastings, quickly, "I must not prolong
encounter with so sharp a wit. Let me leave that answer to this fair
maiden, for by rights it is a challenge to her sex, not to mine."
"How say you, then, Mistress Warner?" said the dame. "Suppose a young
heiress, of the loftiest birth, of the broadest lands, of the
comeliest form--suppose her wooed by a gentleman poor and stationless,
but with a mighty soul, born to achieve greatness, would she lower
herself by hearkening to his suit?"
"A maiden, methinks," answered Sibyll, with reluctant but charming
hesitation, "cannot love truly if she love unworthily; and if she love
worthily, it is not rank nor wealth she loves."
"But her parents, sweet mistress, may deem differently; and should not
her love refuse submission to their tyranny?" asked Hastings.
"Nay, good my lord, nay," returned Sibyll, shaking her head with
thoughtful demureness. "Surely the wooer, if he love worthily, will
not press her to the curse of a child's disobedience and a parent's
wrath!"
"Shrewdly answered," said the dame of Longueville. "Then she would
renounce the poor gentleman if the parent ordain her to marry a rich
lord. Ah, you hesitate, for a woman's ambition is pleased with the
excuse of a child's obedience."
Hastings said this so bitterly that Sibyll could not but perceive that
some personal feeling gave significance to his words. Yet how could
they be applied to him,--to one now in rank and repute equal to the
highest below the throne?
"If the demoiselle should so choose," said the dame of Longueville,
"it seemeth to me that the rejected suitor might find it facile to
disdain and to forget."
Hastings made no reply; but that remarkable and deep shade of
melancholy which sometimes in his gayest hours startled those who
beheld it, and which had, perhaps, induced many of the prophecies that
circulated as to the untimely and violent death that should close his
bright career, gathered like a cloud over his brow. At this moment
the door opened gently, and Robert Hilyard stood at the aperture. He
was clad in the dress of a friar, but the raised cowl showed his
features to the lady of Longueville, to whom alone he was visible; and
those bold features were literally haggard with agitation and alarm.
He lifted his finger to his lips, and motioning the lady to follow
him, closed the door.
The dame of Longueville rose, and praying her visitors to excuse her
absence for a few moments, she left Hastings and Sibyll to themselves.
"Lady," said Hilyard, in a hollow whisper, as soon as the dame
appeared in the low hall, communicating on the one hand with the room
just left, on the other with the street, "I fear all will be detected.
Hush! Adam and the iron coffer that contains the precious papers have
been conducted to Edward's presence. A terrible explosion, possibly
connected with the contrivance, caused such confusion among the guards
that Hugh escaped to scare me with his news. Stationed near the gate
in this disguise, I ventured to enter the courtyard, and saw--saw--the
TORMENTOR! the torturer, the hideous, masked minister of agony, led
towards the chambers in which our hapless messenger is examined by the
ruthless tyrants. Gloucester, the lynx-eyed mannikin, is there!"
"O Margaret, my queen," exclaimed the lady of Longueville, "the papers
will reveal her whereabout."
"No, she is safe!" returned Hilyard; "but thy poor scholar, I tremble
for him, and for the heads of all whom the papers name."
"What can be done! Ha! Lord Hastings is here,--he is ever humane and
pitiful. Dare we confide in him?"
A bright gleam shot over Hilyard's face. "Yes, yes; let me confer
with him alone. I wait him here,--quick!" The lady hastened back.
Hastings was conversing in a low voice with Sibyll. The dame of
Longueville whispered in the courtier's ear, drew him into the hall,
and left him alone with the false friar, who had drawn the cowl over
his face.
"Lord Hastings," said Hilyard, speaking rapidly, "you are in danger,
if not of loss of life, of loss of favour. You gave a passport to one
Warner to see the ex-king Henry. Warner's simplicity (for he is
innocent) hath been duped,--he is made the bearer of secret
intelligence from the unhappy gentlemen who still cling to the
Lancaster cause. He is suspected, he is examined; he may be
questioned by the torture. If the treason be discovered, it was thy
hand that signed the passport; the queen, thou knowest, hates thee,
the Woodvilles thirst for thy downfall. What handle may this give
them! Fly! my lord,--fly to the Tower; thou mayst yet be in time; thy
wit can screen all that may otherwise be bare. Save this poor
scholar, conceal this correspondence. Hark ye, lord! frown not so
haughtily,--that correspondence names thee as one who hast taken the
gold of Count Charolois, and whom, therefore, King Louis may outbuy.
Look to thyself!"
A slight blush passed over the pale brow of the great statesman, but
he answered with a steady voice, "Friar or layman, I care not which,
the gold of the heir of Burgundy was a gift, not a bribe. But I need
no threats to save, if not too late, from rack and gibbet the life of
a guiltless man. I am gone. Hold! bid the maiden, the scholar's
daughter, follow me to the Tower."