_The Page: The Lovers._
Henry De Lorraine was the only son of a once proud, but now decayed
lineage, and, being left an orphan at an early age, had been reared in
the house of his cousin, Lord Deraine. His life there had been that of
most noble youths of his day, who, either through necessity, or for the
purposes of advancement, were brought up as pages in the establishments
of the wealthier nobility. Lorraine, however, possessed one advantage
over the other pages of his cousin: he had from the first been the
companion of the Lady Isabel, the only child of his patron. Although a
year or two older than himself, the want of either brother or sister,
had induced Isabel to confide in him all her little difficulties; and
they had grown up thus, more on the footing of children of the same
parent, than as a wealthy heiress, and a poor dependant.
During the last year of their lives, however, a change had silently, and
almost imperceptibly, come over their feelings toward each other. An
absence of nearly a twelvemonth with his patron at a foreign court, had
in part altered the sentiments of Lorraine from those of a devoted
brother to the emotions of love. He left Isabel, when both thought as
children; he returned and found her already a woman. During that
interval new scenes, new thoughts, new emotions had successively
occupied the heart of the page; and though when he came back he was
still a boy in years, he had already began to feel the intenser passions
of the man. Never had he seen such beauty as burst upon him when Isabel
entered the room on his return. It was as if a goddess of olden Greece
had been ushered into his presence, as if the inanimate statue of
Pygmalion had flushed, all at once, into a breathing being. Lorraine had
dreamed of loveliness, but he had never, in his brightest visions,
pictured aught so fair. He had expected Isabel to be improved, although
he had left her the loveliest being of the riding; but he had not
imagined that she would bud forth into a flower of such surpassing, such
transcendent beauty. He was awed; he was filled as if with the presence
of a divinity, to which he bowed irresistibly, but in strange delight.
From that hour the bosom of the warm, high-souled boy, was ruled by a
passion that devoured his very existence.
But we said Isabel had changed. She too had learned to love, though not
her cousin. As yet she scarcely knew it herself; the secret lay hidden
in the recesses of her own bosom; and though her heart would beat more
wildly, and the blood rush in deeper tints to her cheek, whenever the
steed of her lover, the young Lord De Courtenay, was seen approaching
her father’s gate, yet the Lady Isabel had never asked herself whence
arose her emotion. Perhaps she feared to institute the inquiry. Certain
it is, that like every other delicate female, she almost shrank from
owning, even to herself, that her affections had strayed from their pure
resting-place in her own bosom.
It was well for Lorraine’s present, though unfortunate for his future,
happiness, that De Courtenay had left the country a few days prior to
the page’s return. By this means he was prevented from learning, what,
otherwise would have checked his growing affection even in its bud, and
suffered to go on in his dreams of love, until the very existence of the
endeared object became almost a part of his being.
It was some time before Isabel perceived the change which had been
wrought in her cousin’s feelings toward herself, and when she did, the
knowledge served more than aught else, to reveal to her the state of her
own heart. She saw she could not return her cousin’s passion, though she
still loved him with the same sisterly affection as ever, and with this
discovery came that of her own love for De Courtenay. Although her equal
in rank, and even her superior in wealth, there was a romantic gallantry
in her lover which had forbade him to woo her as others of like elevated
station would have done. Though, therefore, her parent would have
sanctioned the alliance at once, he was yet ignorant of the love the
only son of his neighbor, the earl of Wardour, bore to his daughter. And
though the lady Isabel thought of her absent lover daily, there was
something—it might be maiden modesty, which made her shun breathing De
Courtenay’s name.
Several weeks had now elapsed, and months were beginning to pass away,
since the departure of De Courtenay for Flanders. The time for his
return had nearly arrived, and Isabel had even received a hasty note
from him, breathing a thousand delicate flatteries, such as lovers only
know how to pay and to receive, telling her to expect him at Deraine
Hall, on this very afternoon—yet he came not. Why did he tarry? It was
this knowledge which had made the lady Isabel watch so long from the
terrace, down the avenue of her father’s park. Little did Lorraine
think, as he gazed so devotedly into her face, that her thoughts even
then were wandering upon another.
Let it not be fancied that the lady Isabel trifled with her cousin’s
feelings. Deeply, daily was she pained at his too evident love. She
longed to tell him the truth, and yet she shrank from it. She could not
inflict such agony upon his heart. She would have given worlds to have
had the power of returning his love, but that had long since passed from
her, and like the pitying executioner, she loathed striking the blow,
which she knew must eventually be struck. And thus the story of those
two beings went on, and while both were full of joy and hope, one, at
least, had before him to drink, a cup, as yet unseen, of the bitterest
agony. Alas! for the disappointments, the worse than utter wo, which a
devoted heart experiences, when it discovers that its first deep love is
in vain.