The Last of the Barons — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  CHAPTER V. THE LOVER AND THE GALLANT--WOMAN'S CHOICE.

  Alwyn bent his way to the ramparts, a part of which then resembledthe boulevards of a French town, having rows of trees, green sward, awinding walk, and seats placed at frequent intervals for the reposeof the loungers. During the summer evenings, the place was a favouriteresort of the court idlers; but now, in winter, it was usually deserted,save by the sentries, placed at distant intervals. The trader had notgone far in his quest when he perceived, a few paces before him, thevery man he had most cause to dread; and Lord Hastings, hearing thesound of a footfall amongst the crisp, faded leaves that strewed thepath, turned abruptly as Alwyn approached his side.

  At the sight of his formidable rival, Alwyn had formed one of thoseresolutions which occur only to men of his decided, plain-spoken,energetic character. His distinguishing shrewdness and penetration hadgiven him considerable insight into the nobler as well as the weakerqualities of Hastings; and his hope in the former influenced thedetermination to which he came. The reflections of Hastings at thatmoment were of a nature to augur favourably to the views of the humblerlover; for, during the stirring scenes in which his late absencefrom Sibyll had been passed, Hastings had somewhat recovered from herinfluence; and feeling the difficulties of reconciling his honourand his worldly prospects to further prosecution of the love, rashlyexpressed but not deeply felt, he had determined frankly to cut theGordian knot he could not solve, and inform Sibyll that marriage betweenthem was impossible. With that view he had appointed this meeting, andhis conference with the king but confirmed his intention. It was in thisstate of mind that he was thus accosted by Alwyn:--

  "My lord, may I make bold to ask for a few moments your charitableindulgence to words you may deem presumptuous?"

  "Be brief, then, Master Alwyn,--I am waited for."

  "Alas, my lord! I can guess by whom,--by the one whom I seek myself,--bySibyll Warner."

  "How, Sir Goldsmith!" said Hastings, haughtily, "what knowest thou of mymovements, and what care I for thine?"

  "Hearken, my Lord Hastings,--hearken!" said Alwyn, repressing hisresentment, and in a voice so earnest that it riveted the entireattention of the listener--"hearken, and judge not as noble judgescraftsman, but as man should judge man. As the saw saith, 'We all liealike in our graves.' From the first moment I saw this Sibyll Warner Iloved her. Yes; smile disdainfully, but listen still. She was obscureand in distress. I loved her not for her fair looks alone; I loved herfor her good gifts, for her patient industry, for her filial duty, forher struggles to give bread to her father's board. I did not say tomyself, 'This girl will make a comely fere, a delicate paramour!' Isaid, 'This good daughter will make a wife whom an honest man may taketo his heart and cherish!'" Poor Alwyn stopped, with tears in hisvoice, struggled with his emotions, and pursued: "My fortunes were morepromising than hers; there was no cause why I might not hope. True, Ihad a rival then; young as myself, better born, comelier; but she lovedhim not. I foresaw that his love for her--if love it were--would cease.Methought that her mind would understand mine; as mine--verily I sayit--yearned for hers! I could not look on the maidens of mine own rank,and who had lived around me, but what--oh, no, my lord, again I say, notthe beauty, but the gifts, the mind, the heart of Sibyll, threw themall into the shade. You may think it strange that I--a plain, steadfast,trading, working, careful man--should have all these feelings; but Iwill tell you wherefore such as I sometimes have them, nurse them, broodon them, more than you lords and gentlemen, with all your graceful artsin pleasing. We know no light loves! no brief distractions to the onearch passion! We sober sons of the stall and the ware are no generalgallants,--we love plainly, we love but once, and we love heartily. Butwho knows not the proverb, 'What's a gentleman but his pleasure?'--andwhat's pleasure but change? When Sibyll came to the palace, I soon heardher name linked with yours; I saw her cheek blush when you spoke. Well,well, well! after all, as the old wives tell us, 'Blushing is virtue'slivery.' I said, 'She is a chaste and high-hearted girl.' This willpass, and the time will come when she can compare your love and mine.Now, my lord, the time has come. I know that you seek her. Yea, atthis moment, I know that her heart beats for your footstep. Say butone word,--say that you love Sibyll Warner with the thought of weddingher,--say that, on your honour, noble Hastings, as gentleman and peer,and I will kneel at your feet, and beg your pardon for my vain follies,and go back to my ware, and work, and not repine. Say it! You aresilent? Then I implore you, still as peer and gentleman, to let thehonest love save the maiden from the wooing that will blight herpeace and blast her name! And now, Lord Hastings, I wait your graciousanswer."

  The sensations experienced by Hastings, as Alwyn thus concluded, weremanifold and complicated; but, at the first, admiration and pity werethe strongest.

  "My poor friend," said he, kindly, "if you thus love a demoiselledeserving all my reverence, your words and your thoughts bespeak you nounworthy pretender; but take my counsel, good Alwyn. Come not--thou fromthe Chepe--come not to the court for a wife. Forget this fantasy."

  "My lord, it is impossible! Forget I cannot, regret I may.

  "Thou canst not succeed, man," resumed the nobleman, more coldly,"nor couldst if William Hastings had never lived. The eyes of womenaccustomed to gaze on the gorgeous externals of the world are blindedto plain worth like thine. It might have been different had the donzellnever abided in a palace; but as it is, brave fellow, learn how thesewounds of the heart scar over, and the spot becomes hard and callousevermore. What art thou, Master Nicholas Alwyn," continued Hastings,gloomily, and with a withering smile--"what art thou, to ask for a blissdenied to me--to all of us,--the bliss of carrying poetry into life,youth into manhood, by winning--the FIRST LOVED? But think not, sirlover, that I say this in jealousy or disparagement. Look yonder, by theleafless elm, the white robe of Sibyll Warner. Go and plead thy suit."

  "Do I understand you, my lord?" said Alwyn, somewhat confused andperplexed by the tone and the manner Hastings adopted. "Does report err,and you do not love this maiden?"

  "Fair master," returned Hastings, scornfully, "thou hast no right thatI trow of to pry into my thoughts and secrets; I cannot acknowledgemy judge in thee, good jeweller and goldsmith,--enough, surely, in allcourtesy, that I yield thee the precedence. Tell thy tale, as movingly,if thou wilt, as thou hast told it to me; say of me all that thoufanciest thou hast reason to suspect; and if, Master Alwyn, thou woo andwin the lady, fail not to ask me to thy wedding!"

  There was in this speech and the bearing of the speaker that superblevity, that inexpressible and conscious superiority, that cold,ironical tranquillity, which awe and humble men more than grave disdainor imperious passion. Alwyn ground his teeth as he listened, and gazedin silent despair and rage upon the calm lord. Neither of these mencould strictly be called handsome. Of the two, Alwyn had the advantageof more youthful prime, of a taller stature, of a more powerful, thoughless supple and graceful, frame. In their very dress, there was littleof that marked distinction between classes which then usually prevailed,for the dark cloth tunic and surcoat of Hastings made a costume evensimpler than the bright-coloured garb of the trader, with its broadtrimmings of fur, and its aiglettes of elaborate lace. Between manand man, then, where was the visible, the mighty, the insurmountabledifference in all that can charm the fancy and captivate the eye, which,as he gazed, Alwyn confessed to himself there existed between the two?Alas! how the distinctions least to be analyzed are ever the sternest!What lofty ease in that high-bred air; what histories of triumph seemedto speak in that quiet eye, sleeping in its own imperious lustre; whatmagic of command in that pale brow; what spells of persuasion in thatartful lip! Alwyn muttered to himself, bowed his head involuntarily, andpassed on at once from Hastings to Sibyll, who now, at the distance ofsome yards, had arrested her steps, in surprise to see the conferencebetween the nobleman and the burgher.

  But as he approached Sibyll, poor Alwyn felt all the firmness andcourage he had exhibited with Hastings melt away. And the tr
epidationwhich a fearful but deep affection ever occasions in men of hischaracter, made his movements more than usually constrained and awkward,as he cowered beneath the looks of the maid he so truly loved.

  "Seekest thou me, Master Alwyn?" asked Sibyll, gently, seeing that,though he paused by her side, he spoke not.

  "I do," returned Alwyn, abruptly, and again he was silent. At length,lifting his eyes and looking round him, he saw Hastings at the distance,leaning against the rampart, with folded arms; and the contrast of hisrival's cold and arrogant indifference, and his own burning veins andbleeding heart, roused up his manly spirit, and gave to his tongue theeloquence which emotion gains when it once breaks the fetters it forgesfor itself.

  "Look, look, Sibyll!" he said, pointing to Hastings "look! that man youbelieve loves you. If so--if he loved thee,--would he stand yonder--markhim--aloof, contemptuous, careless--while he knew that I was by yourside?"

  Sibyll turned upon the goldsmith eyes full of innocent surprise,--eyesthat asked, plainly as eyes could speak, "And wherefore not, MasterAlwyn?"

  Alwyn so interpreted the look, and replied, as if she had spoken:"Because he must know how poor and tame is that feeble fantasy whichalone can come from a soul worn bare with pleasure, to that which Ifeel and now own for thee,--the love of youth, born of the heart's firstvigour; because he ought to fear that that love should prevail withthee; because that love ought to prevail. Sibyll, between us there arenot imparity and obstacle. Oh, listen to me,--listen still! Frown not,turn not away." And, stung and animated by the sight of his rival, firedby the excitement of a contest on which the bliss of his own life andthe weal of Sibyll's might depend, his voice was as the cry of a mortalagony, and affected the girl to the inmost recesses of her soul. "Oh,Alwyn, I frown not!" she said sweetly; "oh, Alwyn, I turn not away! Woeis me to give pain to so kind and brave a heart; but--"

  "No, speak not yet. I have studied thee, I have read thee as a scholarwould read a book. I know thee proud; I know thee aspiring; I know thouart vain of thy gentle blood, and distasteful of my yeoman's birth.There, I am not blind to thy faults, but I love thee despite them; andto please those faults I have toiled, schemed, dreamed, risen. I offerto thee the future with the certainty of a man who can command it.Wouldst thou wealth?--be patient (as ambition ever is): in a few yearsthou shalt have more gold than the wife of Lord Hastings can command;thou shalt lodge more statelily, fare more sumptuously; [This was novain promise of Master Alwyn. At that time a successful trader made afortune with signal rapidity, and enjoyed greater luxuries than most ofthe barons. All the gold in the country flowed into the coffers ofthe London merchants.] thou shalt walk on cloth-of-gold if thou wilt!Wouldst thou titles?--I will win them. Richard de la Pole, who foundedthe greatest duchy in the realm, was poorer than I, when he first servedin a merchant's ware. Gold buys all things now. Oh, would to Heaven itcould but buy me thee!"

  "Master Alwyn, it is not gold that buys love. Be soothed. What can I sayto thee to soften the harsh word 'Nay'?"

  "You reject me, then, and at once? I ask not your hand now. I will wait,tarry, hope,--I care not if for years; wait till I can fulfil all Ipromise thee!"

  Sibyll, affected to tears, shook her head mournfully; and there was along and painful silence. Never was wooing more strangely circumstancedthan this,--the one lover pleading while the other was in view; the one,ardent, impassioned, the other, calm and passive; and the silence of thelast, alas! having all the success which the words of the other lacked.It might be said that the choice before Sibyll was a type of the choiceever given, but in vain, to the child of genius. Here a secure andpeaceful life, an honoured home, a tranquil lot, free from idealvisions, it is true, but free also from the doubt and the terror, thestorms of passion; there, the fatal influence of an affection, born ofimagination, sinister, equivocal, ominous, but irresistible. And thechild of genius fulfilled her destiny!

  "Master Alwyn," said Sibyll, rousing herself to the necessary exertion,"I shall never cease gratefully to recall thy generous friendship, nevercease to pray fervently for thy weal below. But forever and forever letthis content thee,--I can no more."

  Impressed by the grave and solemn tone of Sibyll, Alwyn hushed the groanthat struggled to his lips, and gloomily replied: "I obey you, fairmistress, and I return to my workday life; but ere I go, I pray youmisthink me not if I say this much: not alone for the bliss of hopingfor a day in which I might call thee mine have I thus importuned, but,not less--I swear not less--from the soul's desire to save thee fromwhat I fear will but lead to woe and wayment, to peril and pain, toweary days and sleepless nights. 'Better a little fire that warms thana great that burns.' Dost thou think that Lord Hastings, the vain, thedissolute--"

  "Cease, sir!" said Sibyll, proudly; "me reprove if thou wilt, but lowernot my esteem for thee by slander against another!"

  "What!" said Alwyn, bitterly; "doth even one word of counsel chafe thee?I tell thee that if thou dreamest that Lord Hastings loves Sibyll Warneras man loves the maiden he would wed, thou deceivest thyself to thineown misery. If thou wouldst prove it, go to him now,--go and say, 'Wiltthou give me that home of peace and honour, that shelter for my father'sold age under a son's roof which the trader I despise proffers me invain?"

  "If it were already proffered me--by him?" said Sibyll, in a low voice,and blushing deeply.

  Alwyn started. "Then I wronged him; and--and--" he added generously,though with a faint sickness at his heart, "I can yet be happy inthinking thou art so. Farewell, maiden, the saints guard thee from onememory of regret at what hath passed between us!"

  He pulled his bonnet hastily over his brows, and departed with unequaland rapid strides. As he passed the spot where Hastings stood leaninghis arm upon the wall, and his face upon his hand, the nobleman lookedup, and said,--

  "Well, Sir Goldsmith, own at least that thy trial hath been a fair one!"Then struck with the anguish written upon Alwyn's face, he walked upto him, and, with a frank, compassionate impulse, laid his hand onhis shoulder. "Alwyn," he said, "I have felt what you feel now; I havesurvived it, and the world hath not prospered with me less! Take withyou a compassion that respects, and does not degrade you."

  "Do not deceive her, my lord,--she trusts and loves you! You neverdeceived man,--the wide world says it,--do not deceive woman! Deeds killmen, words women!" Speaking thus simply, Alwyn strode on, and vanished.

  Hastings slowly and silently advanced to Sibyll. Her rejection of Alwynhad by no means tended to reconcile him to the marriage he himself hadproffered. He might well suppose that the girl, even if unguided byaffection, would not hesitate between a mighty nobleman and an obscuregoldsmith. His pride was sorely wounded that the latter should have eventhought himself the equal of one whom he had proposed, though but ina passionate impulse, to raise to his own state. And yet as he nearedSibyll, and, with a light footstep, she sprang forward to meet him, hereyes full of sweet joy and confidence, he shrank from an avowal whichmust wither up a heart opening thus all its bloom of youth and love togreet him.

  "Ah, fair lord," said the maiden, "was it kindly in thee to permitpoor Alwyn to inflict on me so sharp a pain, and thou to stand calmlydistant? Sure, alas! that had thy humble rival proffered a crown, it hadbeen the same to Sibyll! Oh, how the grief it was mine to causegrieved me; and yet, through all, I had one selfish, guilty gleam ofpleasure,--to think that I had not been loved so well, if I were allunworthy the sole love I desire or covet!"

  "And yet, Sibyll, this young man can in all, save wealth and a soundingname, give thee more than I can,--a heart undarkened by moody memories,a temper unsoured by the world's dread and bitter lore of man's frailtyand earth's sorrow. Ye are not far separated by ungenial years, andmight glide to a common grave hand in hand; but I, older in heart thanin age, am yet so far thine elder in the last, that these hairs willbe gray, and this form bent, while thy beauty is in its prime, and--butthou weepest!"

  "I weep that thou shouldst bring one thought of time to sadden mythoughts, which are of eternity.
Love knows no age, it foresees nograve! its happiness and its trust behold on the earth but one glory,melting into the hues of heaven, where they who love lastingly passcalmly on to live forever! See, I weep not now!"

  "And did not this honest burgher," pursued Hastings, softened andembarrassed, but striving to retain his cruel purpose, "tell thee todistrust me; tell thee that my vows were false?"

  "Methinks, if an angel told me so, I should disbelieve!"

  "Why, look thee, Sibyll, suppose his warning true; suppose that at thishour I sought thee with intent to say that that destiny which ambitionweaves for itself forbade me to fulfil a word hotly spoken; that I couldnot wed thee,--should I not seem to thee a false wooer, a poor triflerwith thy earnest heart; and so, couldst thou not recall the love of himwhose truer and worthier homage yet lingers in thine ear, and with himbe happy?"

  Sibyll lifted her dark eyes, yet humid, upon the unrevealing face ofthe speaker, and gazed on him with wistful and inquiring sadness; then,shrinking from his side, she crossed her arms meekly on her bosom, andthus said,--

  "If ever, since we parted, one such thought hath glanced acrossthee--one thought of repentance at the sacrifice of pride, or thelessening of power--which (she faltered, broke off the sentence, andresumed)--in one word, if thou wouldst retract, say it now, and I willnot accuse thy falsehood, but bless thy truth."

  "Thou couldst be consoled, then, by thy pride of woman, for the loss ofan unworthy lover?"

  "My lord, are these questions fair?"

  Hastings was silent. The gentler part of his nature struggled severelywith the harder. The pride of Sibyll moved him no less than her trust;and her love in both was so evident, so deep, so exquisitely contrastingthe cold and frivolous natures amidst which his lot had fallen, thathe recoiled from casting away forever a heart never to be replaced.Standing on that bridge of life, with age before and youth behind, hefelt that never again could he be so loved, or, if so loved by one soworthy of whatever of pure affection, of young romance, was yet left tohis melancholy and lonely soul.

  He took her hand, and, as she felt its touch, her firmness forsook her,her head drooped upon her bosom, and she burst into an agony of tears.

  "Oh, Sibyll, forgive me! Smile on me again, Sibyll!" exclaimed Hastings,subdued and melted. But, alas! the heart once bruised and galledrecovers itself but slowly, and it was many minutes before the softestwords the eloquent lover could shape to sound sufficed to dry thoseburning tears, and bring back the enchanting smile,--nay, even then thesmile was forced and joyless. They walked on for some moments, both inthought, till Hastings said: "Thou lovest me, Sibyll, and art worthy ofall the love that man can feel for maid; and yet, canst thou solve methis question, nor chide me that I ask it, Dost thou not love the worldand the world's judgments more than me? What is that which women callhonour? What makes them shrink from all love that takes not the form andcircumstance of the world's hollow rites? Does love cease to be love,unless over its wealth of trust and emotion the priest mouths his emptyblessing? Thou in thy graceful pride art angered if I, in wedding thee,should remember the sacrifice which men like me--I own it fairly--deemas great as man can make; and yet thou wouldst fly my love if it wooedthee to a sacrifice of thine own."

  Artfully was the question put, and Hastings smiled to himself inimagining the reply it must bring; and then Sibyll answered, with theblush which the very subject called forth,

  "Alas, my lord, I am but a poor casuist, but I feel that if I asked theeto forfeit whatever men respect,--honour and repute for valour, to betraitor and dastard,--thou couldst love me no more; and marvel you if,when man woos woman to forfeit all that her sex holds highest,--to be inwoman what dastard and traitor is in man,--she hears her conscienceand her God speak in a louder voice than can come from a human lip? Thegoods and pomps of the world we are free to sacrifice, and true loveheeds and counts them not; but true love cannot sacrifice that whichmakes up love,--it cannot sacrifice the right to be loved below; thehope to love on in the realm above; the power to pray with a pure soulfor the happiness it yearns to make; the blessing to seem ever good andhonoured in the eyes of the one by whom alone it would be judged. Andtherefore, sweet lord, true love never contemplates this sacrifice; andif once it believes itself truly loved, it trusts with a fearless faithin the love on which it leans."

  "Sibyll, would to Heaven I had seen thee in my youth! Would to Heaven Iwere more worthy of thee!" And in that interview Hastings had noheart to utter what he had resolved, "Sibyll, I sought thee but to sayFarewell."