The Last of the Barons — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (books to read for self improvement TXT) 📕

mistakest! I have seen her, and she loves thee not the less because her virtue so long concealed the love.” Hastings uttered an exclamation of passionate joy, but again his face darkened.

Gloucester watched him in silence; besides any motive suggested by the affection he then sincerely bore to Hastings, policy might well interest the duke in the securing to so loyal a Yorkist the hand and the wealth of Lord Warwick’s sister; but, prudently not pressing the subject further, he said, in an altered and careless voice, “Pardon me if I have presumed on matters on which each man judges for himself. But as, despite all obstacle, one day or other Anne Nevile shall be mine, it would have delighted me to know a near connection in Lord Hastings. And now the hour grows late, I prithee let Edward find thee in his chamber.”

When Hastings attended the king, he at once perceived that Edward’s manner was changed to him. At first, he attributed the cause to the ill offices of the queen and her brother; but the king soon betrayed the true source of his altered humour.

“My lord,” he said abruptly, “I am no saint, as thou knowest; but there are some ties, par amour, which, in my mind, become not knights and nobles about a king’s person.”

“My liege, I arede you not.”

“Tush, William!” replied the king, more gently, “thou hast more than once wearied me with application for the pardon of the nigromancer Warner,—the whole court is scandalized at thy love for his daughter. Thou hast absented thyself from thine office on poor pretexts! I know thee too well not to be aware that love alone can make thee neglect thy king,—thy time has been spent at the knees or in the arms of this young sorceress! One word for all times,—he whom a witch snares cannot be a king’s true servant! I ask of thee as a right, or as a grace, see this fair ribaude no more! What, man, are there not ladies enough in merry England, that thou shouldst undo thyself for so unchristian a fere?”

“My king! how can this poor maid have angered thee thus?”

“Knowest thou not”—began the king, sharply, and changing colour as he eyed his favourite’s mournful astonishment,—“ah, well!” he muttered to himself, “they have been discreet hitherto, but how long will they be so? I am in time yet. It is enough,”—he added, aloud and gravely—“it is enough that our learned [it will be remembered that Edward himself was a man of no learning] Bungey holds her father as a most pestilent wizard, whose spells are muttered for Lancaster and the rebel Warwick; that the girl hath her father’s unholy gifts, and I lay my command on thee, as liege king, and I pray thee, as loving friend, to see no more either child or sire! Let this suffice—and now I will hear thee on state matters.”

Whatever Hastings might feel, he saw that it was no time to venture remonstrance with the king, and strove to collect his thoughts, and speak indifferently on the high interests to which Edward invited him; but he was so distracted and absent that he made but a sorry counsellor, and the king, taking pity on him, dismissed his chamberlain for the night.

Sleep came not to the couch of Hastings; his acuteness perceived that whatever Edward’s superstition, and he was a devout believer in witchcraft, some more worldly motive actuated him in his resentment to poor Sibyll. But as we need scarcely say that neither from the abstracted Warner nor his innocent daughter had Hastings learned the true cause, he wearied himself with vain conjectures, and knew not that Edward involuntarily did homage to the superior chivalry of his gallant favourite, when he dreaded that, above all men, Hastings should be made aware of the guilty secret which the philosopher and his child could tell. If Hastings gave his name and rank to Sibyll, how powerful a weight would the tale of a witness now so obscure suddenly acquire!

Turning from the image of Sibyll, thus beset with thoughts of danger, embarrassment, humiliation, disgrace, ruin, Lord Hastings recalled the words of Gloucester; and the stately image of Katherine, surrounded with every memory of early passion, every attribute of present ambition, rose before him; and he slept at last, to dream not of Sibyll and the humble orchard, but of Katherine in her maiden bloom, of the trysting-tree by the halls of Middleham, of the broken ring, of the rapture and the woe of his youth’s first high-placed love.