The Last of the Barons — Complete

Isabel remained cold and silent, and returned not the earl’s embrace.

Warwick was, happily, too absorbed in his own feelings to notice those of his child. Moving away, he continued, as he paced the room (his habit in emotion, which Isabel, who had many minute external traits in common with her father, had unconsciously caught from him),—

“Till this morning I hoped still that my name and services, that Clarence’s popular bearing and his birth of Plantagenet, would suffice to summon the English people round our standard; that the false Edward would be driven, on our landing, to fly the realm; and that, without change to the dynasty of York, Clarence, as next male heir, would ascend the throne. True, I saw all the obstacles, all the difficulties,—I was warned of them before I left England; but still I hoped. Lord Oxford has arrived, he has just left me. We have gone over the chart of the way before us, weighed the worth of every name, for and against; and, alas! I cannot but allow that all attempt to place the younger brother on the throne of the elder would but lead to bootless slaughter and irretrievable defeat.”

“Wherefore think you so, my lord?” asked Isabel, in evident excitement. “Your own retainers are sixty thousand,—an army larger than Edward, and all his lords of yesterday, can bring into the field.”

“My child,” answered the earl, with that profound knowledge of his countrymen which he had rather acquired from his English heart than from any subtlety of intellect, “armies may gain a victory, but they do not achieve a throne,—unless, at least, they enforce a slavery; and it is not for me and for Clarence to be the violent conquerors of our countrymen, but the regenerators of a free realm, corrupted by a false man’s rule.”

“And what then,” exclaimed Isabel,—“what do you propose, my father? Can it be possible that you can unite yourself with the abhorred Lancastrians, with the savage Anjouite, who beheaded my grandsire, Salisbury? Well do I remember your own words,—‘May God and Saint George forget me, when I forget those gray and gory hairs!’”

Here Isabel was interrupted by a faint cry from Anne, who, unobserved by the rest, and hitherto concealed from her father’s eye by the deep embrasure of the window, had risen some moments before, and listened, with breathless attention, to the conversation between Warwick and the duchess.

“It is not true, it is not true!” exclaimed Anne, passionately. “Margaret disowns the inhuman deed.”

“Thou art right, Anne,” said Warwick; “though I guess not how thou didst learn the error of a report so popularly believed that till of late I never questioned its truth. King Louis assures me solemnly that that foul act was done by the butcher Clifford, against Margaret’s knowledge, and, when known, to her grief and anger.”

“And you, who call Edward false, can believe Louis true?”

“Cease, Isabel, cease!” said the countess. “Is it thus my child can address my lord and husband? Forgive her, beloved Richard.”

“Such heat in Clarence’s wife misbeseems her not,” answered Warwick. “And I can comprehend and pardon in my haughty Isabel a resentment which her reason must at last subdue; for think not, Isabel, that it is without dread struggle and fierce agony that I can contemplate peace and league with mine ancient foe; but here two duties speak to me in voices not to be denied: my honour and my hearth, as noble and as man, demand redress, and the weal and glory of my country demand a ruler who does not degrade a warrior, nor assail a virgin, nor corrupt a people by lewd pleasures, nor exhaust a land by grinding imposts; and that honour shall be vindicated, and that country shall be righted, no matter at what sacrifice of private grief and pride.”

The words and the tone of the earl for a moment awed even Isabel; but after a pause, she said suddenly, “And for this, then, Clarence hath joined your quarrel and shared your exile?—for this,—that he may place the eternal barrier of the Lancastrian line between himself and the English throne?”

“I would fain hope,” answered the earl, calmly, “that Clarence will view our hard position more charitably than thou. If he gain not all that I could desire, should success crown our arms, he will, at least, gain much; for often and ever did thy husband, Isabel, urge me to stern measures against Edward, when I soothed him and restrained. Mort Dieu! how often did he complain of slight and insult from Elizabeth and her minions, of open affront from Edward, of parsimony to his wants as prince,—of a life, in short, humbled and made bitter by all the indignity and the gall which scornful power can inflict on dependent pride. If he gain not the throne, he will gain, at least, the succession in thy right to the baronies of Beauchamp, the mighty duchy, and the vast heritage of York, the vice-royalty of Ireland. Never prince of the blood had wealth and honours equal to those that shall await thy lord. For the rest, I drew him not into my quarrel; long before would he have drawn me into his; nor doth it become thee, Isabel, as child and as sister, to repent, if the husband of my daughter felt as brave men feel, without calculation of gain and profit, the insult offered to his lady’s House. But if here I overgauge his chivalry and love to me and mine, or discontent his ambition and his hopes, Mort Dieu! we hold him not a captive. Edward will hail his overtures of peace; let him make terms with his brother, and return.”

“I will report to him what you say, my lord,” said Isabel, with cold brevity and, bending her haughty head in formal reverence, she advanced to the door. Anne sprang forward and caught her hand.

“Oh, Isabel!” she whispered, “in our father’s sad and gloomy hour can you leave him thus?” and the sweet lady burst into tears.

“Anne,” retorted Isabel, bitterly, “thy heart is Lancastrian; and what, peradventure, grieves my father hath but joy for thee.”

Anne drew back, pale and trembling, and her sister swept from the room.

The earl, though he had not overheard the whispered sentences which passed between his daughters, had watched them closely, and his lip quivered with emotion as Isabel closed the door.

“Come hither, my Anne,” he said tenderly; “thou who hast thy mother’s face, never hast a harsh thought for thy father.”

As Anne threw herself on Warwick’s breast, he continued, “And how camest thou to learn that Margaret disowns a deed that, if done by her command, would render my union with her cause a sacrilegious impiety to the dead?”

Anne coloured, and nestled her head still closer to her father’s bosom. Her mother regarded her confusion and her silence with an anxious eye.

The wing of the palace in which the earl’s apartments were situated was appropriated to himself and household, flanked to the left by an abutting pile containing state-chambers, never used by the austere and thrifty Louis, save on great occasions of pomp or revel; and, as we have before observed, looking on a garden, which was generally solitary and deserted. From this garden, while Anne yet strove for words to answer her father, and the countess yet watched her embarrassment, suddenly came the soft strain of a Provencal lute; while a low voice, rich, and modulated at once by a deep feeling and an exquisite art that would have given effect to even simpler words, breathed—

THE LAY OF THE HEIR OF LANCASTER

“His birthright but a father’s name,
A grandsire’s hero-sword,
He dwelt within the stranger’s land,
The friendless, homeless lord!”

“Yet one dear hope, too dear to tell,
Consoled the exiled man;
The angels have their home in heaven
And gentle thoughts in Anne.”

At that name the voice of the singer trembled, and paused a moment; the earl, who at first had scarcely listened to what he deemed but the ill-seasoned gallantry of one of the royal minstrels, started in proud surprise, and Anne herself, tightening her clasp round her father’s neck, burst into passionate sobs. The eye of the countess met that of her lord; but she put her finger to her lips in sign to him to listen. The song was resumed—

“Recall the single sunny time,
In childhood’s April weather,
When he and thou, the boy and girl,
Roved hand in band together.”

“When round thy young companion knelt
The princes of the isle;
And priest and people prayed their God,
On England’s heir to smile.”

The earl uttered a half-stifled exclamation, but the minstrel heard not the interruption, and continued,—

“Methinks the sun hath never smiled
Upon the exiled man,
Like that bright morning when the boy
Told all his soul to Anne.”

“No; while his birthright but a name,
A grandsire’s hero—sword,
He would not woo the lofty maid
To love the banished lord.”

“But when, with clarion, fife, and drum,
He claims and wins his own;
When o’er the deluge drifts his ark,
To rest upon a throne.”

“Then, wilt thou deign to hear the hope
That blessed the exiled man,
When pining for his father’s crown
To deck the brows of Anne?”

The song ceased, and there was silence within the chamber, broken but by Anne’s low yet passionate weeping. The earl gently strove to disengage her arms from his neck; but she, mistaking his intention, sank on her knees, and covering her face with her hands, exclaimed,—

“Pardon! pardon! pardon him, if not me!”

“What have I to pardon? What hast thou concealed from me? Can I think that thou hast met, in secret, one who—”

“In secret! Never, never, Father! This is the third time only that I have heard his voice since we have been at Amboise, save when—save when—”