Chapter XIX Fears and Hopes
William de Beauchamp, the taciturn and melancholy, had not attended the council at Northampton. But he could not well absent himself when an attack was made upon the castle which once had been his; and for his own benefit, for the king had promised to reinstate him as soon as the Robber Baron should have been driven out. He had been given a command in the royal force, and found himself in the anomalous position of besieging his own castle.
But the march of events did not, as might well have been imagined, raise his drooping spirits. He was, indeed, more dismal than ever, having got a fixed idea in his head that he should never come to his own again. Though he had escaped unhurt from the two first assaults, by which the barbican and the outer bailey had been won, he was well aware that yet more serious struggles were before the besiegers ere they might hope to win the inner bailey and the keep. These assaults, he had made up his mind, he should not survive, and in his gloomiest, most funereal manner, called Ralph to him at the close of a summer’s evening, when they were resting from duty in the house of Gilbert the Clothier, where they were quartered, and prepared to deliver to him what he supposed to be his last wishes and dispositions.
“Nephew Ralph,” he began, in his most lugubrious tones, “thou hast been as a son to me, since my only son was cut off in early childhood.”
“True, uncle much revered by me,” replied Ralph, puzzled at this solemn address. “I know not quite if I have been a good son to thee, but thou hast, in good sooth, given me all the father’s care I have ever known.”
“And now, Nephew Ralph,” William de Beauchamp continued, “I am about to confide to thee a very precious and holy message. Thou hast heard tell of the Lady Margaret de Ripariis?”
“Ay, certes,” replied Ralph.
“And now that my time is at hand, and that the sands of my life are—”
“Thy time is at hand! By my faith, uncle, what mean these words?”
“Thou wottest that ere long we attack the old tower and the inner bailey,” the uncle proceeded, in a tragic manner.
“I have but just come from the old tower, where John de Standen hath showed me how nigh is its overthrow.”
“Hark ye, nephew. I shall fall then; I know it of a certainty. I have seen in a dream that I shall not survive the assault. I shall ne’er again set eyes on the Lady Margaret, now for many years the unhappy wife of Fulke de Breauté. Once, when we were young and she was fair, we plighted our troth, and I have never forgotten it, though a cruel fate tore us asunder. My wife, who was ne’er to me as the first love of my youth the Lady Margaret, hath been dead these many years; and had the time come for the end of the miserable Fulke, I would fain have offered myself again to my once affianced bride. But I die before him. I feel it. For us there is no hope.”
Ralph began to perceive the gloomy forebodings that had seized his uncle, and tried, but in vain, to reassure him, pointing out how much danger he had already escaped, and bidding him hope for the best.
“For eight long years thou hast pined an exile from the halls of thine ancestors, uncle. But to-day our star is again in the ascendant, and fortune smiles once more upon the De Beauchamps.”
William shook his head sadly.
“It may not be, nephew. But bear thou to the Lady Margaret my last words of unalterable affection for the love of my youth.”
“Nay, uncle, thou shalt bear them thyself, when Fulke shall have gone to the perdition reserved for him! But cease these dark meditations, and list awhile to a sprightly wooing I overheard ’twixt one of those within the castle, and no less a person than the king’s miner, in the old tower, this very noontide.”
And to turn his uncle’s thoughts, Ralph proceeded to relate the strange meeting between John de Standen and Beatrice.
But at the very hour these two talked thus together in Master Gilbert’s guest-chamber, the subject of their conversation, the Lady Margaret, sat with her waiting-woman in the deep window of the lady’s bower.
The latter was brimming over with eagerness to impart to Aliva the good news she had just ascertained as to Ralph’s safety, but deemed it prudent to confide it first to her mistress.
“By’r Lady, mistress mine, I vow I heard him, though I cannot say I saw him, and he is whole and in good heart.”
“The saints be praised!” ejaculated Lady Margaret. “It hath grieved me sore that this sweet maiden should be thus held prisoner by my evil-disposed brother, and yet sadder am I to think that she should have been told her knight was slain.”
“And such a knight, lady! Fair spoken, and of good courage. I heard it in the ring of his voice, as he hasted to ask after her welfare, how much he loveth her.”
“Thou knewest that he was the Lady Aliva’s knight, then, Beatrice?”
“Ever since the affair of the helmet, lady. My Lady Aliva could not contain herself then, when she knew him wounded, and told me all. She is as true to him as the pole-star to the north, or as I to—”
“I know it, Beatrice, and it would be a deadly sin, and one I will stand out against as long as I draw breath, were she to be forced to wed William. The lying wretch! he will stick at naught to gain his end. To tell Aliva Sir Ralph was dead! Alas, alas! But peace, Beatrice; here she comes. I will tell her the news.”
Inwardly chafing at being deprived of the pleasure of imparting such delightful information, Beatrice retreated behind the chair of her mistress as Aliva entered.
The weary weeks the latter had spent as a prisoner since that fatal morning when she was hurried into the castle, and the intense mental anguish she had endured since the helmet of the wounded knight had been handed to her on the ramparts that same evening, had left their traces on Aliva’s pale cheek. The listless attitude in which she sank upon a stone seat, and gazed with mournful eyes out into the fast-falling summer twilight, contrasted strangely with the natural vigour and vivacity of the brave horsewoman who had led William de Breauté such a chase over the Ouse marshes. Something akin to despair had crushed her soul since Sir Fulke had brought her the news of Sir Ralph’s death.
“Daughter,” began Lady Margaret, tenderly drawing the fair head which leaned so wearily upon the thin hand down upon her knee, “I have somewhat to say to thee. This suit of my husband’s brother—methinks Sir Fulke knew, as well as thou and I, how vain it was to urge it while thy true knight yet lived—”
“It were ever vain, lady, were Ralph alive or dead. Death would be sweeter to me than marriage with William de Breauté,” replied Aliva mournfully.
“He hath used treachery once to gain his end; what if he hath also used deceit of words?” Lady Margaret went on. “Other De Beauchamps than thy knight bear the crest thou sawest on the casque.”
“Ah, lady,” moaned Aliva, “beguile me not with vain hopes. Did not Beatrice here see him fall?”
“In good sooth! But, lady, I saw him not die.”
“Mind you how the townsfolk bore him off with much care? Perchance Hubert of Provence aimed not o’er true with his quarrel—”
“He is but a sorry wight in many things, lady,” put in Beatrice scornfully.
“And the leeches are possessed of marvellous skill, as thou well knowest, and Sir Ralph is young and strong—”
“Was young and strong, you mean, lady. O prithee, peace! Open not thus afresh a wound which bleeds, ay, and will bleed for ever!”
“My lady means what she says, and naught else,” interrupted Beatrice, unable to restrain herself any longer. “He is young and strong, or beshrew me for a deaf old crone, for I trow his voice was strong enough this noontide!”
“His voice!” exclaimed Aliva, raising herself eagerly, and a faint colour overspreading her pallid cheek. “O Beatrice, mock me not!”
“Thou mockest thyself, daughter,” said Lady Margaret, smiling. “Take heart o’ grace. Beatrice speaks true; she hath heard him not many hours since.”
And Beatrice, coming forward and falling at her lady’s knees, poured forth her wonderful tale in a torrent of words.
When she paused for lack of breath, Aliva rose, like one waking from a dream, and clutched Beatrice’s arm.
“Beatrice, an thou lovest me, take me to this chink in the vault of the old tower. Haste thee, haste thee! Let me hear him speak again.”
“Alas, lady! but this very evening William de Breauté hath ordered that all women keep within the keep, as the enemy presseth us round so close.”
A merry laugh as of old, the first which had rung from her since she had been a prisoner, and the first to which the lady’s bower had re-echoed for many a day, burst from Aliva’s lips. With the violent revulsion of feeling born of her youth and high mettle, she waved her hand scornfully and laughed again.
“William de Breauté! Oh, he may command and order, in good sooth, if it please him. What for him now, or for his commands! Methinks his time comes apace, and Ralph de Beauchamp will be master here. My Ralph—to think they had dared to tell me that he was slain!”
And then she fell to bidding Beatrice tell her story all over again.
“Pretty Beatrice, an could I, I would give thee a lapful of gold nobles for this news thou hast brought. It is to me worth a king’s ransom. I feel like one risen from the dead. But I trow, Mistress Beatrice,” she added archly, “that thou hast had thy reward, in that the bold miner was also below. But tell me once more the very words Sir Ralph spake.”
“Nay, nay, maidens,” put in Lady Margaret; “it is already night, and joy oft wearies as much as grief. Let us now to rest while we may. The strife will begin again at dawn.”
“Lady,” cried Aliva, embracing the elder woman with tenderness, “go thou and rest if thou canst. I could not close my eyes for very joy.—Go, Beatrice, and leave me here a while alone, that I may think it all o’er again. Go to thy dreams of mines and miners!”
Left to herself, Aliva sat down in the deep window-seat where Lady Margaret had sat when Sir Fulke related to her a less pleasant vision of the night than that which probably haunted the couch of Beatrice—a dream which now seemed in fair way of coming true. The short July darkness had fallen. Across the river the petraria were at rest, and in the silence of the night Aliva only
“Heard the sound, and could almost tell
The sullen words of the sentinel,
As his measured step on the stone below
Clanked as he paced it to and fro.”
Aliva gazed out into the beautiful balmy night, and a peace to which she had long been a stranger stole in upon her heart. The world was at rest, and it seemed sad to think that in a few short hours, when the darkness should be over, man would be once more at his cruel work of war. But the stars, shining deep in the purple overhead and reflected in the placid stream below, seemed to her stars of hope.
“It is the hour when lovers’ vows
Seem sweet in every whispered word,
And gentle winds and waters near
Make music to the lonely ear.”
As she gazed she thought she heard her name called softly from out of the gloom below.
“Aliva!” said a voice, “Aliva!”