The Last of the Barons — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (reading an ebook .TXT) 📖

“Yes, ob, yes!—but rather away, far away, in some quiet village, some green nook; for the desolate, ruined home was not safe for thine old age.”

“I would we could escape, Sibyll,” said Adam, earnestly, in a whisper, and with a kind of innocent cunning in his eye, “we and the poor Eureka! This palace is a prison-house to me. I will speak to the Lord Hastings, a man of great excellence, and gentle too. He is ever kind to us.”

“No, no, Father, not to him,” cried Sibyll, turning pale,—“let him not know a word of what we would propose, nor whither we would fly.”

“Child, he loves me, or why does he seek me so often, and sit and talk not?”

Sibyll pressed her clasped hands tightly to her bosom, but made no answer; and while she was summoning courage to say something that seemed to oppress her thoughts with intolerable weight, a footstep sounded gently near, and the Lady of Bonville (then on a visit to the queen), unseen and unheard by the two, approached the spot. She paused, and gazed at Sibyll, at first haughtily; and then, as the deep sadness of that young face struck her softer feelings, and the pathetic picture of father and child, thus alone in their commune, made its pious and sweet effect, the gaze changed from pride to compassion, and the lady said courteously,—

“Fair mistress, canst thou prefer this solitary scene to the gay company about to take the air in her grace’s gilded barge?”

Sibyll looked up in surprise, not unmixed with fear. Never before had the great lady spoken to her thus gently. Adam, who seemed for a while restored to the actual life, saluted Katherine with simple dignity, and took up the word,—

“Noble lady, whoever thou art, in thine old age, and thine hour of care, may thy child, like this poor girl, forsake all gayer comrades for a parent’s side!”

The answer touched the Lady of Bonville, and involuntarily she extended her hand to Sibyll. With a swelling heart, Sibyll, as proud as herself, bent silently over that rival’s hand. Katherine’s marble cheek coloured, as she interpreted the girl’s silence.

“Gentle sir,” she said, after a short pause, “wilt thou permit me a few words with thy fair daughter? And if in aught, since thou speakest of care, Lord Warwick’s sister can serve thee, prithee bid thy young maiden impart it, as to a friend.”

“Tell her, then, my Sibyll,—tell Lord Warwick’s sister to ask the king to give back to Adam Warner his poverty, his labour, and his hope,” said the scholar, and his noble head sank gloomily on his bosom.

The Lady of Bonville, still holding Sibyll’s hand, drew her a few paces up the walk, and then she said suddenly, and with some of that blunt frankness which belonged to her great brother, “Maiden, can there be confidence between thee and me?”

“Of what nature, lady?”

Again Katherine blushed, but she felt the small hand she held tremble in her clasp, and was emboldened,—

“Maiden, thou mayst resent and marvel at my words; but when I had fewer years than thou, my father said, ‘There are many carks in life which a little truth could end.’ So would I heed his lesson. William de Hastings has followed thee with an homage that has broken, perchance, many as pure a heart,—nay, nay, fair child, hear me on. Thou hast heard that in youth he wooed Katherine Nevile,—that we loved, and were severed. They who see us now marvel whether we hate or love,—no, not love—that question were an insult to Lord Bonville’s wife!—Ofttimes we seem pitiless to each other,—why? Lord Hastings would have wooed me, an English matron, to forget mine honour and my House’s. He chafes that he moves me not. I behold him debasing a great nature to unworthy triflings with man’s conscience and a knight’s bright faith. But mark me!—the heart of Hastings is everlastingly mine, and mine alone! What seek I in this confidence? To warn thee. Wherefore? Because for months, amidst all the vices of this foul court-air, amidst the flatteries of the softest voice that ever fell upon woman’s ear, amidst, peradventure, the pleadings of thine own young and guileless love, thine innocence is unscathed. And therefore Katherine of Bonville may be the friend of Sibyll Warner.”

However generous might be the true spirit of these words, it was impossible that they should not gall and humiliate the young and flattered beauty to whom they were addressed. They so wholly discarded all belief in the affection of Hastings for Sibyll; they so haughtily arrogated the mastery over his heart; they so plainly implied that his suit to the poor maiden was but a mockery or dishonour, that they made even the praise for virtue an affront to the delicate and chaste ear on which they fell. And, therefore, the reader will not be astonished, though the Lady of Bonville certainly was, when Sibyll, drawing her hand from Katherine’s clasp, stopping short, and calmly folding her arms upon her bosom, said,—

“To what this tends, lady, I know not. The Lord Hastings is free to carry his homage where he will. He has sought me,—not I Lord Hastings. And if to-morrow he offered me his hand, I would reject it, if I were not convinced that the heart—”

“Damsel,” interrupted the Lady Bonville, in amazed contempt, “the hand of Lord Hastings! Look ye indeed so high, or has he so far paltered with your credulous youth as to speak to you, the daughter of the alchemist, of marriage? If so, poor child, beware!

“I knew not,” replied Sibyll, bitterly, “that Sibyll Warner was more below the state of Lord Hastings than Master Hastings was once below the state of Lady Katherine Nevile.”

“Thou art distraught with thy self-conceit,” answered the dame, scornfully; and, losing all the compassion and friendly interest she had before felt, “my rede is spoken,—reject it if thou wilt in pride. Rue thy folly thou wilt in shame!”

She drew her wimple round her face as she said these words, and, gathering up her long robe, swept slowly on.