Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Volume 04

Something there was in the Queen's eyes, as she raised them towards Edith at this burst of enthusiasm, that gave for a moment, to a face otherwise so dissimilar, the likeness to her father; something, in that large pupil, of the impenetrable unrevealing depth of a nature close and secret in self-control. And a more acute observer than Edith might long have been perplexed and haunted with that look, wondering if, indeed, under the divine and spiritual composure, lurked the mystery of human passion.

"My child," said the Queen, with the faintest smile upon her lips, and drawing Edith towards her, "there are moments when all that breathe the breath of life feel, or have felt, alike. In my vain youth I read, I mused, I pondered, but over worldly lore. And what men called the sanctity of virtue, was perhaps but the silence of thought. Now I have put aside those early and childish dreams and shadows, remembering them not, save (here the smile grew more pronounced) to puzzle some poor schoolboy with the knots and riddles of the sharp grammarian[18 - Ingulfus.]. But not to speak of my self have I sent for thee. Edith, again and again, solemnly and sincerely, I pray thee to obey the wish of my lord the King. And now, while yet in all the bloom of thought, as of youth, while thou hast no memory save the child's, enter on the Realm of Peace."

"I cannot, I dare not, I cannot—ah, ask me not," said poor Edith, covering her face with her hands.

Those hands the Queen gently withdrew; and looking steadfastly in the changeful and half-averted face, she said mournfully, "Is it so, my godchild? and is thy heart set on the hopes of earth—thy dreams on the love of man?"

"Nay," answered Edith, equivocating; "but I have promised not to take the veil."

"Promised to Hilda?"

"Hilda," exclaimed Edith readily, "would never consent to it. Thou knowest her strong nature, her distaste to—to——"

"The laws of our holy Church—I do; and for that reason it is, mainly, that I join with the King in seeking to abstract thee from her influence. But it is not Hilda that thou hast promised?"

Edith hung her head.

"Is it to woman or to man?"

Before Edith could answer the door from the ante-room opened gently, but without the usual ceremony, and Harold entered. His quick quiet eye embraced both forms, and curbed Edith's young impulse, which made her start from her seat, and advance joyously towards him as a protector.

"Fair day to thee, my sister," said the Earl, advancing; and pardon, if I break thus rudely on thy leisure; for few are the moments when beggar and Benedictine leave thee free to receive thy brother."

"Dost thou reproach me, Harold?"

"No, Heaven forfend!" replied the Earl, cordially, and with a look at once of pity and admiration; "for thou art one of the few, in this court of simulators, sincere and true; and it pleases thee to serve the Divine Power in thy way, as it pleases me to serve Him in mine."

"Thine, Harold?" said the Queen, shaking her head, but with a look of some human pride and fondness in her fair face.

"Mine; as I learned it from thee when I was thy pupil, Edith; when to those studies in which thou didst precede me, thou first didst lure me from sport and pastime; and from thee I learned to glow over the deeds of Greek and Roman, and say, 'They lived and died as men; like them may I live and die!'"

"Oh, true—too true!" said the Queen, with a sigh; "and I am to blame grievously that I did so pervert to earth a mind that might otherwise have learned holier examples;—nay, smile not with that haughty lip, my brother; for believe me—yea, believe me—there is more true valour in the life of one patient martyr than in the victories of Caesar, or even the defeat of Brutus."

"It may be so," replied the Earl, "but out of the same oak we carve the spear and the cross; and those not worthy to hold the one, may yet not guiltily wield the other. Each to his path of life—and mine is chosen." Then, changing his voice, with some abruptness, he said, "But what hast thou been saying to thy fair godchild, that her cheek is pale, and her eyelids seem so heavy? Edith, Edith, my sister, beware how thou shapest the lot of the martyr without the peace of the saint. Had Algive the nun been wedded to Sweyn our brother, Sweyn were not wending, barefooted and forlorn, to lay the wrecks of desolated life at the Holy Tomb."

"Harold, Harold!" faltered the Queen, much struck with his words.

"But," the Earl continued—and something of the pathos which belongs to deep emotion vibrated in the eloquent voice, accustomed to command and persuade—"we strip not the green leaves for our yulehearths—we gather them up when dry and sere. Leave youth on the bough—let the bird sing to it—let it play free in the airs of heaven. Smoke comes from the branch which, cut in the sap, is cast upon the fire, and regret from the heart which is severed from the world while the world is in its May."

The Queen paced slowly, but in evident agitation, to and fro the room, and her hands clasped convulsively the rosary round her neck; then, after a pause of thought, she motioned to Edith and, pointing to the oratory, said with forced composure, "Enter there, and there kneel; commune with thyself, and be still. Ask for a sign from above—pray for the grace within. Go; I would speak alone with Harold."

Edith crossed her arms on her bosom meekly, and passed into the oratory. The Queen watched her for a few moments tenderly, as the slight, child-like form bent before the sacred symbol. Then she closed the door gently, and coming with a quick step to Harold, said, in a low but clear voice, "Dost thou love the maiden?"

"Sister," answered the Earl sadly, "I love her as a man should love woman—more than my life, but less than the ends life lives for."

"Oh, world, world, world!" cried the Queen, passionately, "not even to thine own objects art thou true. O world! O world! thou desirest happiness below, and at every turn, with every vanity, thou tramplest happiness under foot! Yes, yes; they said to me, 'For the sake of our greatness, thou shalt wed King Edward.' And I live in the eyes that loathe me—and—and——" The Queen, as if conscience-stricken, paused aghast, kissed devoutly the relic suspended to her rosary, and continued, with such calmness that it seemed as if two women were blent in one, so startling was the contrast. "And I have had my reward, but not from the world! Even so, Harold the Earl, and Earl's son, thou lovest yon fair child, and she thee; and ye might be happy, if happiness were earth's end; but, though high-born, and of fair temporal possessions, she brings thee not lands broad enough for her dowry, nor troops of kindred to swell thy lithsmen, and she is not a markstone in thy march to ambition; and so thou lovest her as man loves woman—'less than the ends life lives for!'"

"Sister," said Harold, "thou speakest as I love to hear thee speak—as my bright-eyed, rose-lipped sister spoke in the days of old; thou speakest as a woman with warm heart, and not as the mummy in the stiff cerements of priestly form; and if thou art with me, and thou wilt give me countenance, I will marry thy godchild, and save her alike from the dire superstitions of Hilda, and the grave of the abhorrent convent."

"But my father—my father!" cried the Queen, "who ever bended that soul of steel?"

"It is not my father I fear; it is thee and thy monks. Forgettest thou that Edith and I are within the six banned degrees of the Church?"

"True, most true," said the Queen, with a look of great terror; "I had forgotten. Avaunt, the very thought! Pray—fast—banish it—my poor, poor brother!" and she kissed his brow.

"So, there fades the woman, and the mummy speaks again!" said Harold, bitterly. "Be it so: I bow to my doom. Well, there may be a time when Nature on the throne of England shall prevail over Priestcraft; and, in guerdon for all my services, I will then ask a King who hath blood in his veins to win me the Pope's pardon and benison. Leave me that hope, my sister, and leave thy godchild on the shores of the living world."

The Queen made no answer, and Harold, auguring ill from her silence, moved on and opened the door of the oratory. But the image that there met him, that figure still kneeling, those eyes, so earnest in the tears that streamed from them fast and unheeded, fixed on the holy rood—awed his step and checked his voice. Nor till the girl had risen, did he break silence; then he said, gently, "My sister will press thee no more, Edith——"

"I say not that!" exclaimed the Queen.

"Or if she doth, remember thy plighted promise under the wide cope of blue heaven, the old nor least holy temple of our common Father."

With these words he left the room.

CHAPTER VII

Harold passed into the Queen's ante-chamber. Here the attendance was small and select compared with the crowds which we shall see presently in the ante-room to the King's closet; for here came chiefly the more learned ecclesiastics, attracted instinctively by the Queen's own mental culture, and few indeed were they at that day (perhaps the most illiterate known in England since the death of Alfred[19 - The clergy (says Malmesbury), contented with a very slight share of learning, could scarcely stammer out the words of the sacraments; and a person who understood grammar was an object of wonder and astonishment. Other authorities, likely to be impartial, speak quite as strongly as to the prevalent ignorance of the time.]); and here came not the tribe of impostors, and the relic-venders, whom the infantine simplicity and lavish waste of the Confessor attracted. Some four or five priests and monks, some lonely widow, some orphan child, humble worth, or protected sorrow, made the noiseless levee of the sweet, sad Queen.

The groups turned, with patient eyes, towards the Earl as he emerged from that chamber, which it was rare indeed to quit unconsoled, and marvelled at the flush in his cheek; and the disquiet on his brow; but Harold was dear to the clients of his sister; for, despite his supposed indifference to the mere priestly virtues (if virtues we call them) of the decrepit time, his intellect was respected by yon learned ecclesiastics; and his character, as the foe of all injustice, and the fosterer of all that were desolate, was known to yon pale-eyed widow and yon trembling orphan.

In the atmosphere of that quiet assembly, the Earl seemed to recover his kindly temperament, and he paused to address a friendly or a soothing word to each; so that when he vanished, the hearts there felt more light; and the silence hushed before his entrance, was broken by many whispers in praise of the good Earl.

Descending a staircase without the walls—as even in royal halls the principal staircases were then—Harold gained a wide court, in which loitered several house-carles[20 - House-carles in the royal court were the body-guard, mostly, if not all, of Danish origin. They appear to have been first formed, or at least employed, in that capacity by Canute. With the great earls, the house-carles probably exercised the same functions; but in the ordinary acceptation of the word in families of lower rank, house- carle was a domestic servant.] and attendants, whether of the King or the visitors; and, reaching the entrance of the palace, took his way towards the King's rooms, which lay near, and round, what is now called "The Painted Chamber," then used as a bedroom by Edward on state occasions.

And now he entered the ante-chamber of his royal brother-in-law. Crowded it was, but rather seemed it the hall of a convent than the ante-room of a king. Monks, pilgrims, priests, met his eye in every nook; and not there did the Earl pause to practise the arts of popular favour. Passing erect through the midst, he beckoned forth the officer, in attendance at the extreme end, who, after an interchange of whispers, ushered him into the royal presence. The monks and the priests, gazing towards the door which had closed on his stately form, said to each other:

"The King's Norman favourites at least honoured the Church."

"That is true," said an abbot; "and an it were not for two things, I should love the Norman better than the Saxon."

"What are they, my father?" asked an aspiring young monk.

"Inprinis," quoth the abbot, proud of the one Latin word he thought he knew, but, that, as we see, was an error; "they cannot speak so as to be understood, and I fear me much they incline to mere carnal learning."

Here there was a sanctified groan:

"Count William himself spoke to me in Latin!" continued the abbot, raising his eyebrows.

"Did he?—Wonderful!" exclaimed several voices. "And what did you answer, holy father?"

"Marry," said the abbot solemnly, "I replied, Inprinis."

"Good!" said the young monk, with a look of profound admiration.

"Whereat the good Count looked puzzled—as I meant him to be:—a heinous fault, and one intolerant to the clergy, that love of profane tongues! And the next thing against your Norman is (added the abbot, with a sly wink), that he is a close man, who loves not his stoup; now, I say, that a priest never has more hold over a sinner than when he makes the sinner open his heart to him."

"That's clear!" said a fat priest, with a lubricate and shining nose.