_ BOOK X
CHAPTER V. THE MEETING OF HASTINGS AND KATHERINE.
The next morning, while Edward was engaged in levying from his opulent citizens all the loans he could extract, knowing that gold is the sinew of war; while Worcester was manning the fortress of the Tower, in which the queen, then near her confinement, was to reside during the campaign; while Gloucester was writing commissions to captains and barons to raise men; while Sir Anthony Lord Rivers was ordering improvements in his dainty damasquine armour, and the whole Fortress Palatine was animated and alive with the stir of the coming strife,--Lord Hastings escaped from the bustle, and repaired to the house of Katherine. With what motive, with what intentions, was not known clearly to himself,--perhaps, for there was bitterness in his very love for Katherine, to enjoy the retaliation due to his own wounded pride, and say to the idol of his youth, as he had said to Gloucester, "Time is, time was;" perhaps with some remembrance of the faith due to Sibyll, wakened up the more now that Katherine seemed actually to escape from the ideal image into the real woman,--to be easily wooed and won. But, certainly, Sibyll's cause was not wholly lost, though greatly shaken and endangered, when Lord Hastings alighted at Lady Bonville's gate; but his face gradually grew paler, his mien less assured, as he drew nearer and nearer to the apartment and the presence of the widowed Katherine.
She was seated alone, and in the same room in which he had last seen her. Her deep mourning only served, by contrasting the pale and exquisite clearness of her complexion, to enhance her beauty. Hastings bowed low, and seated himself by her side in silence.
The Lady of Bonville eyed him for some moments with an unutterable expression of melancholy and tenderness. All her pride seemed to have gone; the very character of her face was changed: grave severity had become soft timidity, and stately self-control was broken into the unmistaken struggle of hope and fear.
"Hastings--William!" she said, in a gentle and low whisper, and at the sound of that last name from those lips, the noble felt his veins thrill and his heart throb. "If," she continued, "the step I have taken seems to thee unwomanly and too bold, know, at least, what was my design and my excuse. There was a time" (and Katherine blushed) "when, thou knowest well, that, had this hand been mine to bestow, it would have been his who claimed the half of this ring." And Katherine took from a small crystal casket the well-remembered token.
"The broken ring foretold but the broken troth," said Hastings, averting his face.
"Thy conscience rebukes thy words," replied Katherine, sadly; "I pledged my faith, if thou couldst win my father's word. What maid, and that maid a Nevile, could so forget duty and honour as to pledge thee more? We were severed. Pass--oh, pass over that time! My father loved me dearly; but when did pride and ambition ever deign to take heed of the wild fancies of a girl's heart? Three suitors, wealthy lords, whose alliance gave strength to my kindred in the day when their very lives depended on their swords, were rivals for Earl Salisbury's daughter. Earl Salisbury bade his daughter choose. Thy great friend and my own kinsman, Duke Richard of York, himself pleaded for thy rivals. He proved to me that my disobedience--if, indeed, for the first time, a child of my House could disobey its chief--would be an external barrier to thy fortune; that while Salisbury was thy foe, he himself could not advance thy valiancy and merit; that it was with me to forward thy ambition, though I could not reward thy love; that from the hour I was another's, my mighty kinsmen themselves--for they were generous--would be the first to aid the duke in thy career. Hastings, even then I would have prayed, at least, to be the bride, not of man, but God. But I was trained--as what noble demoiselle is not?--to submit wholly to a parent's welfare and his will. As a nun, I could but pray for the success of my father's cause; as a wife, I could bring to Salisbury and to York the retainers and strongholds of a baron. I obeyed. Hear me on. Of the three suitors for my hand, two were young and gallant,--women deemed them fair and comely; and had my choice been one of these, thou mightest have deemed that a new love had chased the old. Since choice was mine, I chose the man love could not choose, and took this sad comfort to my heart, 'He, the forsaken Hastings, will see in my very choice that I was but the slave of duty, my choice itself my penance.'"
Katherine paused, and tears dropped fast from her eyes. Hastings held his hand over his countenance, and only by the heaving of his heart was his emotion visible. Katherine resumed:--
"Once wedded, I knew what became a wife. We met again; and to thy first disdain and anger (which it had been dishonour in me to soothe by one word that said, 'The wife remembers the maiden's love'),--to these, thy first emotions, succeeded the more cruel revenge, which would have changed sorrow and struggle to remorse and shame. And then, then--weak woman that I was!--I wrapped myself in scorn and pride. Nay, I felt deep anger--was it unjust?--that thou couldst so misread and so repay the heart which had nothing left save virtue to compensate for love. And yet, yet, often when thou didst deem me most hard, most proof against memory and feeling--But why relate the trial? Heaven supported me, and if thou lovest me no longer, thou canst not despise me."
At these last words Hastings was at her feet, bending over her hand, and stifled by his emotions. Katherine gazed at him for a moment through her own tears, and then resumed:--
"But thou hadst, as man, consolations no woman would desire or covet. And oh, what grieved me most was, not--no, not the jealous, the wounded vanity, but it was at least this self-accusation, this remorse--that--but for one goading remembrance, of love returned and love forsaken,--thou hadst never so descended from thy younger nature, never so trifled with the solemn trust of TIME. Ah, when I have heard or seen or fancied one fault in thy maturer manhood, unworthy of thy bright youth, anger of myself has made me bitter and stern to thee; and if I taunted or chid or vexed thy pride, how little didst thou know that through the too shrewish humour spoke the too soft remembrance! For this--for this; and believing that through all, alas! my image was not replaced, when my hand was free, I was grateful that I might still--" (the lady's pale cheek grew brighter than the rose, her voice faltered, and became low and indistinct)--"I might still think it mine to atone to thee for the past. And if," she added, with a sudden and generous energy, "if in this I have bowed my pride, it is because by pride thou wert wounded; and now, at last, thou hast a just revenge."
O terrible rival for thee, lost Sibyll! Was it wonderful that, while that head drooped upon his breast, while in that enchanted change which Love the softener makes in lips long scornful, eyes long proud and cold, he felt that Katherine Nevile--tender, gentle, frank without boldness, lofty without arrogance--had replaced the austere dame of Bonville, whom he half hated while he wooed,--oh, was it wonderful that the soul of Hastings fled back to the old time, forgot the intervening vows and more chill affections, and repeated only with passionate lips, "Katherine, loved still, loved ever, mine, mine, at last!"
Then followed delicious silence, then vows, confessions, questions, answers,--the thrilling interchange of hearts long divided, and now rushing into one. And time rolled on, till Katherine, gently breaking from her lover, said,--
"And now that thou hast the right to know and guide my projects, approve, I pray thee, my present purpose. War awaits thee, and we must part a while!" At these words her brow darkened and her lip quivered. "Oh, that I should have lived to mourn the day when Lord Warwick, untrue to Salisbury and to York, joined his arms with Lancaster and Margaret,--the day when Katherine could blush for the brother she had deemed the glory of her House! No, no" (she continued, as Hastings interrupted her with generous excuses for the earl, and allusion to the known slights he had received),--"no, no; make not his cause the worse by telling me that an unworthy pride, the grudge of some thwart to his policy or power, has made him forget what was due to the memory of his kinsman York, to the mangled corpse of his father Salisbury. Thinkest thou that but for this I could--" She stopped, but Hastings divined her thought, and guessed that, if spoken, it had run thus: "That I could, even now, have received the homage of one who departs to meet, with banner and clarion, my brother as his foe?"
The lovely sweetness of the late expression had gone from Katherine's face, and its aspect showed that her high and ancestral spirit had yielded but to one passion. She pursued,--
"While this strife lasts, it becomes my widowhood and kindred position with the earl to retire to the convent my mother founded. To-morrow I depart."
"Alas!" said Hastings, "thou speakest of the strife as if but a single field. But Warwick returns not to these shores, nor bows himself to league with Lancaster, for a chance hazardous and desperate, as Edward too rashly deems it. It is in vain to deny that the earl is prepared for a grave and lengthened war, and much I doubt whether Edward can resist his power; for the idolatry of the very land will swell the ranks of so dread a rebel. What if he succeed; what if we be driven into exile, as Henry's friends before us; what if the king-maker be the king-dethroner? Then, Katherine, then once more thou wilt be at the best of thy hostile kindred, and once more, dowered as thou art, and thy womanhood still in its richest bloom, thy hand will be lost to Hastings."
"Nay, if that be all thy fear, take with thee this pledge,--that Warwick's treason to the House for which my father fell dissolves his power over one driven to disown him as a brother,--knowing Earl Salisbury, had he foreseen such disgrace, had disowned him as a son. And if there be defeat and flight and exile, wherever thou wanderest, Hastings, shall Katherine be found beside thee. Fare thee well, and Our Lady shield thee! may thy lance be victorious against all foes,--save one. Thou wilt forbear my--that is, the earl!" And Katherine, softened at that thought, sobbed aloud.
"And come triumph or defeat, I have thy pledge?" said Hastings, soothing her.
"See," said Katherine, taking the broken ring from the casket; "now, for the first time since I bore the name of Bonville, I lay this relic on my heart; art thou answered?" _