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?"
