CHAPTER V. KATHERINE.
For several days Hastings avoided Sibyll; in truth, he felt remorse forhis design, and in his various, active, and brilliant life he had notthe leisure for obstinate and systematic siege to a single virtue, norwas he, perhaps, any longer capable of deep and enduring passion; hisheart, like that of many a chevalier in the earlier day, had lavisheditself upon one object, and sullenly, upon regrets and dreams, and vainanger and idle scorn, it had exhausted those sentiments which makethe sum of true love. And so, like Petrarch, whom his taste and fancyworshipped, and many another votary of the gentil Dieu, while hisimagination devoted itself to the chaste and distant ideal--thespiritual Laura--his senses, ever vagrant and disengaged, settledwithout scruple upon the thousand Cynthias of the minute. But then thoseCynthias were, for the most part, and especially of late years, easy andlight-won nymphs; their coyest were of another clay from the tender butlofty Sibyll. And Hastings shrunk from the cold-blooded and deliberateseduction of one so pure, while he could not reconcile his mind tocontemplate marriage with a girl who could give nothing to his ambition;and yet it was not in this last reluctance only his ambition thatstartled and recoiled. In that strange tyranny over his whole soul whichKatherine Bonville secretly exercised, he did not dare to place a newbarrier evermore between her and himself. The Lord Bonville was ofinfirm health; he had been more than once near to death's door; andHastings, in every succeeding fancy that beguiled his path, recalled thethrill of his heart when it had whispered "Katherine, the loved of thyyouth, may yet be thine!" And then that Katherine rose before him,not as she now swept the earth, with haughty step and frigid eye anddisdainful lip, but as--in all her bloom of maiden beauty, before thetemper was soured or the pride aroused--she had met him in the summertwilight, by the trysting-tree, broken with him the golden ring offaith, and wept upon his bosom.
And yet, during his brief and self-inflicted absence from Sibyll, thiswayward and singular personage, who was never weak but to women, andever weak to them, felt that she had made herself far dearer to him thanhe had at first supposed it possible. He missed that face, ever,till the last interview, so confiding in the unconsciously betrayedaffection. He felt how superior in sweetness and yet in intellect Sibyllwas to Katherine; there was more in common between her mind and his inall things, save one. But oh, that one exception!--what a world lieswithin it,--the memory of the spring of life! In fact, though Hastingsknew it not, he was in love with two objects at once; the one, achimera, a fancy, an ideal, an Eidolon, under the name of Katherine;the other, youth and freshness and mind and heart and a living shape ofbeauty, under the name of Sibyll. Often does this double love happen tomen; but when it does, alas for the human object! for the shadowy andthe spiritual one is immortal,--until, indeed, it be possessed!
It might be, perhaps, with a resolute desire to conquer the new love andconfirm the old that Hastings, one morning, repaired to the house of theLady Bonville, for her visit to the court had expired. It was a largemansion, without the Lud Gate.
He found the dame in a comely chamber, seated in the sole chair the roomcontained, to which was attached a foot-board that served as adais, while around her, on low stools, sat some spinning, othersbroidering--some ten or twelve young maidens of good family, sent toreceive their nurturing under the high-born Katherine, [And strangeas it may seem to modern notions, the highest lady who received suchpensioners accepted a befitting salary for their board and education.]while two other and somewhat elder virgins sat a little apart, but closeunder the eye of the lady, practising the courtly game of "prime:" forthe diversion of cards was in its zenith of fashion under Edward IV.,and even half a century later was considered one of the essentialaccomplishments of a well-educated young lady. [So the PrincessMargaret, daughter of Henry VIL, at the age of fourteen, exhibitsher skill, in prime or trump, to her betrothed husband, James IV.of Scotland; so, among the womanly arts of the unhappy Katherine ofArragon, it is mentioned that she could play at "cards and dyce." (SeeStrutt: Games and Pastimes, Hones' edition, p. 327.) The legislaturewas very anxious to keep these games sacred to the aristocracy, andvery wroth with 'prentices and the vulgar for imitating the ruinousamusements of their betters.] The exceeding stiffness, the solemnsilence of this female circle, but little accorded with the mood ofthe graceful visitor. The demoiselles stirred not at his entrance, andKatherine quietly motioned him to a seat at some distance.
"By your leave, fair lady," said Hastings, "I rebel against so distantan exile from such sweet company;" and he moved the tabouret close tothe formidable chair of the presiding chieftainess.
Katherine smiled faintly, but not in displeasure.
"So gay a presence," she said, "must, I fear me, a little disturb theselearners."
Hastings glanced at the prim demureness written on each blooming visage,and replied,--
"You wrong their ardour in such noble studies. I would wager thatnothing less than my entering your bower on horseback, with helm onhead and lance in rest, could provoke even a smile from one pair ofthe twenty rosy lips round which, methinks, I behold Cupido hovering invain!"
The baroness bent her stately brows, and the twenty rosy lips were alltightly pursed up, to prevent the indecorous exhibition which the wickedcourtier had provoked. But it would not do: one and all the twenty lipsbroke into a smile,--but a smile so tortured, constrained, and nipped inthe bud, that it only gave an expression of pain to the features it wasforbidden to enliven.
"And what brings the Lord Hastings hither?" asked the baroness, in aformal tone.
"Can you never allow for motive the desire of pleasure, fair dame?"
That peculiar and exquisite blush, which at moments changed the wholephysiognomy of Katherine, flitted across her smooth cheek, and vanished.She said gravely,--
"So much do I allow it in you, my lord, that hence my question."
"Katherine!" exclaimed Hastings, in a voice of tender reproach, andattempting to seize her hand, forgetful of all other presence save thatto which the blush, that spoke of old, gave back the ancient charm.
Katherine cast a hurried and startled glance over the maiden group,and her eye detected on the automaton faces one common expression ofsurprise. Humbled and deeply displeased, she rose from the awful chair,and then, as suddenly reseating herself, she said, with a voice andlip of the most cutting irony, "My lord chamberlain is, it seems, sohabituated to lackey his king amidst the goldsmiths and grocers, that heforgets the form of language and respect of bearing which a noblewomanof repute is accustomed to consider seemly."
Hastings bit his lip, and his falcon eye shot indignant fire.
"Pardon, my Lady of Bonville and Harrington, I did indeed forget whatreasons the dame of so wise and so renowned a lord hath to feel pridein the titles she hath won. But I see that my visit hath chanced out ofseason. My business, in truth, was rather with my lord, whose counsel inpeace is as famous as his truncheon in war!"
"It is enough," replied Katherine, with a dignity that rebuked thetaunt, "that Lord Bonville has the name of an honest man,--who neverrose at court."
"Woman, without one soft woman-feeling!" muttered Hastings, between hisground teeth, as he approached the lady and made his profound obeisance.The words were intended only for Katherine's ear, and they reached it.Her bosom swelled beneath the brocaded gorget, and when the door closedon Hastings, she pressed her hands convulsively together, and her darkeyes were raised upward.
"My child, thou art entangling thy skein," said the lady of Bonville,as she passed one of the maidens, towards the casement, which sheopened,--"the air to-day weighs heavily!"