The Betrothed

Chapter 17

Ring out the merry bell, the bride approaches,

The blush upon her cheek has shamed the morning,

For that is dawning palely. Grant, good saints,

These clouds betoken nought of evil omen!

OLD PLAY.

The day of the _fiancailles, or espousals, was now approaching;

and it seems that neither the profession of the Abbess, nor her

practice at least, were so rigid as to prevent her selecting the

great parlour of the convent for that holy rite, although

necessarily introducing many male guests within those vestal

precincts, and notwithstanding that the rite itself was the

preliminary to a state which the inmates of the cloister had

renounced for ever.

The Abbess's Norman pride of birth, and the real interest which

she took in her niece's advancement, overcame all scruples; and

the venerable mother might be seen in unwonted bustle, now giving

orders to the gardener for decking the apartment with flowers--now

to her cellaress, her precentrix, and the lay-sisters of the

kitchen, for preparing a splendid banquet, mingling her commands

on these worldly subjects with an occasional ejaculation on their

vanity and worthlessness, and every now and then converting the

busy and anxious looks which she threw upon her preparations into

a solemn turning upward of eyes and folding of hands, as one who

sighed over the mere earthly pomp which she took such trouble in

superintending. At another time the good lady might have been seen

in close consultation with Father Aldrovand, upon the ceremonial,

civil and religious, which was to accompany a solemnity of such

consequence to her family.

Meanwhile the reins of discipline, although relaxed for a season,

were not entirely thrown loose. The outer court of the convent was

indeed for the time opened for the reception of the male s*x; but

the younger sisters and novices of the house being carefully

secluded in the more inner apartments of the extensive building,

under the immediate eye of a grim old nun, or, as the conventual

rule designed her, an ancient, sad, and virtuous person, termed

Mistress of the Novices, were not permitted to pollute their eyes

by looking on waving plumes and rustling mantles. A few sisters,

indeed, of the Abbess's own standing, were left at liberty, being

such goods as it was thought could not, in shopman's phrase, take

harm from the air, and which are therefore left lying on the

counter. These antiquated dames went mumping about with much

affected indifference, and a great deal of real curiosity,

endeavouring indirectly to get information concerning names, and

dresses, and decorations, without daring to show such interest in

these vanities as actual questions on the subject might have

implied.

A stout band of the Constable's spearmen guarded the gate of the

nunnery, admitting within the hallowed precinct the few only who

were to be present at the solemnity, with their principal

attendants, and while the former were ushered with all due

ceremony into the apartments dressed out for the occasion, the

attendants, although detained in the outer court, were liberally

supplied with refreshments of the most substantial kind; and had

the amusement, so dear to the menial classes, of examining and

criticising their masters and mistresses, as they passed into the

interior apartments prepared for their reception.

Amongst the domestics who were thus employed were old Raoul the

huntsman and his jolly dame--he gay and glorious, in a new cassock

of green velvet, she gracious and comely, in a kirtle of yellow

silk, fringed with minivair, and that at no mean cost, were

equally busied in beholding the gay spectacle. The most inveterate

wars have their occasional terms of truce; the most bitter and

boisterous weather its hours of warmth and of calmness; and so was

it with the matrimonial horizon of this amiable pair, which,

usually cloudy, had now for brief space cleared up. The splendour

of their new apparel, the mirth of the spectacle around them, with

the aid, perhaps, of a bowl of muscadine quaffed by Raoul, and a

cup of hippocras sipped by his wife, had rendered them rather more

agreeable in each other's eyes than was their wont; good cheer

being in such cases, as oil is to a rusty lock, the means of

making those valves move smoothly and glibly, which otherwise work

not together at all, or by shrieks and groans express their

reluctance to move in union. The pair had stuck themselves into a

kind of niche, three or four steps from the ground, which

contained a small stone bench, whence their curious eyes could

scrutinize with advantage every guest who entered the court.

Thus placed, and in their present state of temporary concord,

Raoul with his frosty visage formed no unapt representative of

January, the bitter father of the year; and though Gillian was

past the delicate bloom of youthful May, yet the melting fire of a

full black eye, and the genial glow of a ripe and crimson cheek,

made her a lively type of the fruitful and jovial August. Dame

Gillian used to make it her boast, that she could please every

body with her gossip, when she chose it, from Raymond Berenger

down to Robin the horse-boy; and like a good housewife, who, to

keep her hand in use, will sometimes even condescend to dress a

dish for her husband's sole eating, she now thought proper to

practise her powers of pleasing on old Raoul, fairly conquering,

in her successful sallies of mirth and satire, not only his

cynical temperament towards all human kind, but his peculiar and

special disposition to be testy with his spouse. Her jokes, such

as they were, and the coquetry with which they were enforced, had

such an effect on this Timon of the woods, that he curled up his

cynical nose, displayed his few straggling teeth like a cur about

to bite, broke out into a barking laugh, which was more like the

cry of one of his own hounds--stopped short in the explosion, as

if he had suddenly recollected that it was out of character; yet,

ere he resumed his acrimonious gravity, shot such a glance at

Gillian as made his nut-cracker jaws, pinched eyes, and convolved

nose, bear no small resemblance to one of those fantastic faces

which decorate the upper end of old bass viols.

"Is not this better than laying your dog-leash on your loving

wife, as if she were a brach of the kennel?" said August to

January.

"In troth is it," answered January, in a frost-bitten tone;--"and

so it is also better than doing the brach-tricks which bring the

leash into exercise."

"Humph!" said Gillian, in the tone of one who thought her

husband's proposition might bear being disputed; but instantly

changing the note to that of tender complaint, "Ah! Raoul," she

said, "do you not remember how you once beat me because our late

lord--Our Lady assoilzie him!--took my crimson breast-knot for a

peony rose?"

"Ay, ay," said the huntsman; "I remember our old master would make

such mistakes--Our Lady assoilzie him! as you say--The best hound

will hunt counter."

"And how could you think, dearest Raoul, to let the wife of thy

bosom go so long without a new kirtle?" said his helpmate.

"Why, thou hast got one from our young lady that might serve a

countess," said Raoul, his concord jarred by her touching this

chord--"how many kirtles wouldst thou have?"

"Only two, kind Raoul; just that folk may not count their

children's age by the date of Dame Gillian's last new gown."

"Well, well--it is hard that a man cannot be in good-humour once

and away without being made to pay for it. But thou shalt have a

new kirtle at Michaelmas, when I sell the buck's hides for the

season. The very antlers should bring a good penny this year."

"Ay, ay," said Gillian; "I ever tell thee, husband, the horns

would be worth the hide in a fair market."

Raoul turned briskly round as if a wasp had stung him, and there

is no guessing what his reply might have been to this seemingly

innocent observation, had not a gallant horseman at that instant

entered the court, and, dismounting like the others, gave his

horse to the charge of a squire, or equerry, whose attire blazed

with embroidery.

"By Saint Hubert, a proper horseman, and a _destrier_ for an

earl," said Raoul; "and my Lord Constable's liveries withal--yet I

know not the gallant."

"But I do," said Gillian; "it is Randal de Lacy, the Constable's

kinsman, and as good a man as ever came of the name!"

"Oh! by Saint Hubert, I have heard of him--men say he is a

reveller, and a jangler, and a waster of his goods."

"Men lie now and then," said Gillian dryly.

"And women also," replied Raoul;--"why, methinks he winked on thee

just now."

"That right eye of thine saw never true since our good lord-Saint

Mary rest him!--flung a cup of wine in thy face, for pressing over

boldly into his withdrawing-room."

"I marvel," said Raoul, as if he heard her not, "that yonder

ruffler comes hither. I have heard that he is suspected to have

attempted the Constable's life, and that they have not spoken

together for five years."

"He comes on my young lady's invitation, and that I know full

well," said Dame Gillian; "and he is less like to do the Constable

wrong than to have wrong at his hand, poor gentleman, as indeed he

has had enough of that already."

"And who told thee so?" said Raoul, bitterly.

"No matter, it was one who knew all about it very well," said the

dame, who began to fear that, in displaying her triumph of

superior information, she had been rather over-communicative.

"It must have been the devil, or Randal himself" said Raoul, "for

no other mouth is large enough for such a lie.--But hark ye, Dame

Gillian, who is he that presses forward next, like a man that

scarce sees how he goes?"

"Even your angel of grace, my young Squire Damian" said Dame

Gillian.

"It is impossible!" answered Raoul--"call me blind if thou wilt;--

but I have never seen man so changed in a few weeks--and his

attire is flung on him so wildly as if he wore a horse-cloth round

him instead of a mantle--What can ail the youth?--he has made a

dead pause at the door, as if he saw something on the threshold

that debarred his entrance--Saint Hubert, but he looks as if he

were elf-stricken!"

"You ever thought him such a treasure!" said Gillian; "and now

look at him as he stands by the side of a real gentleman, how he

stares and trembles as if he were distraught."

"I will speak to him," said Raoul, forgetting his lameness, and

springing from his elevated station--"I will speak to him; and if

he be unwell, I have my lancets and fleams to bleed man as well as

brute."

"And a fit physician for such a patient," muttered Gillian,--"a

dog-leech for a dreamy madman, that neither knows his own disease

nor the way to cure it."

Meanwhile the old huntsman made his way towards the entrance,

before which Damian remained standing, in apparent uncertainty

whether he should enter or not, regardless of the crowd around,

and at the same time attracting their attention by the singularity

of his deportment.

Raoul had a private regard for Damiah; for which, perhaps, it was

a chief reason, that of late his wife had been in the habit of

speaking of him in a tone more disrespectful than she usually

applied to handsome young men. Besides, he understood the youth

was a second Sir Tristrem in silvan sports by wood and river, and

there needed no more to fetter Raoul's soul to him with bands of

steel. He saw with great concern his conduct attract general

notice, mixed with some ridicule.

"He stands," said the town-jester, who had crowded into the gay

throng, "before the gate, like Balaam's ass in the Mystery, when

the animal sees so much more than can be seen by any one else."

A cut from Raoul's ready leash rewarded the felicity of this

application, and sent the fool howling off to seek a more

favourable audience, for his pleasantry. At the same time Raoul

pressed up to Damian, and with an earnestness very different from

his usual dry causticity of manner, begged him for God's sake not

to make himself the general spectacle, by standing there as if the

devil sat on the doorway, but either to enter, or, what might be

as becoming, to retire, and make himself more fit in apparel for

attending on a solemnity so nearly concerning his house.

"And what ails my apparel, old man?" said Damian, turning sternly

on the huntsman, as one who has been hastily and uncivilly roused

from a reverie.

"Only, with respect to your valour," answered the huntsman, "men

do not usually put old mantles over new doublets; and methinks,

with submission, that of yours neither accords with your dress,

nor is fitted for this noble presence."

"Thou art a fool!" answered Damian, "and as green in wit as gray

in years. Know you not that in these days the young and old

consort together--contract together--wed together? and should we

take more care to make our apparel consistent than our actions?"

"For God's sake, my lord," said Raoul, "forbear these wild and

dangerous words! they may be heard by other ears than mine, and

construed by worse interpreters. There may be here those who will

pretend to track mischief from light words, as I would find a buck

from his frayings. Your cheek is pale, my lord, your eye is blood-

shot; for Heaven's sake, retire!"

"I will not retire," said Damian, with yet more distemperature of

manner, "till I have seen the Lady Eveline."

"For the sake of all the saints," ejaculated Raoul, "not now!--You

will do my lady incredible injury by forcing yourself into her

presence in this condition."

"Do you think so!" said Damian, the remark seeming to operate as a

sedative which enabled him to collect his scattered thoughts.--"Do

you really think so?--I thought that to have looked upon her once

more--but no--you are in the right, old man."

He turned from the door as if to withdraw, but ere he could

accomplish his purpose, he turned yet more pale than before,

staggered, and fell on the pavement ere Raoul could afford him his

support, useless as that might have proved. Those who raised him

were surprised to observe that his garments were soiled with

blood, and that the stains upon his cloak, which had been

criticised by Raoul, were of the same complexion. A grave-looking

personage, wrapped in a sad-coloured mantle, came forth from the

crowd.

"I knew how it would be," he said; "I made venesection this

morning, and commanded repose and sleep according to the aphorisms

of Hippocrates; but if young gentlemen will neglect the ordinance

of their physician, medicine will avenge herself. It is impossible

that my bandage or ligature, knit by these fingers, should have

started, but to avenge the neglect of the precepts of art."

"What means this prate?" said the voice of the Constable, before

which all others were silent. He had been summoned forth just as

the rite of espousal or betrothing was concluded, on the confusion

occasioned by Damian's situation, and now sternly commanded the

physician to replace the bandages which had slipped from his

nephew's arm, himself assisting in the task of supporting the

patient, with the anxious and deeply agitated feelings of one who

saw a near and justly valued relative--as yet, the heir of his

fame and family--stretched before him in a condition so dangerous.

But the griefs of the powerful and the fortunate are often mingled

with impatience of interrupted prosperity. "What means this?" he

demanded sternly of the leech. "I sent you this morning to attend

my nephew on the first tidings of his illness, and commanded that

he should make no attempt to be present on this day's solemnity,

yet I find him in this state, and in this place."

"So please your lordship," replied the leech, with a conscious

self-importance, which even the presence of the Constable could

not subdue--_"Curatio est canonica, non coacta;_ which

signifieth, my lord, that the physician acteth his cure by rules

of art and science--by advice and prescription, but not by force

or violence upon the patient, who cannot be at all benefited

unless he be voluntarily amenable to the orders of his medicum."

"Tell me not of your jargon," said De Lacy; "if my nephew was

lightheaded enough to attempt to come hither in the heat of a

delirious distemper, you should have had sense to prevent him, had

it been by actual force."

"It may be," said, Randal de Lacy, joining the crowd, who,

forgetting the cause which had brought them together, were now

assembled about Damian, "that more powerful was the magnet which

drew our kinsman hither, than aught the leech could do to withhold

him."

The Constable, still busied about his nephew, looked up as Randal

spoke, and, when he was done, asked, with formal coldness of

manner, "Ha, fair kinsman, of what magnet do you speak?"

"Surely of your nephew's love and regard to your lordship,"

answered Randal, "which, not to mention his respect for the lady

Eveline, must have compelled him hither, if his limbs were able to

bear him.--And here the bride comes, I think, in charity, to thank

him for his zeal."

"What unhappy case is this?" said the Lady Eveline, pressing

forward, much disordered with the intelligence of Damian's danger,

which had been suddenly conveyed to her. "Is there nothing in

which my poor service may avail?"

"Nothing, lady," said the Constable, rising from beside his

nephew, and taking her hand; "your kindness is here mistimed. This

motley assembly, this unseeming confusion, become not your

presence."

"Unless it could be helpful, my lord," said Eveline, eagerly. "It

is your nephew who is in danger--my deliverer--one of my

deliverers, I would say."

"He is fitly attended by his chirurgeon," said the Constable,

leading back his reluctant bride to the convent, while the medical

attendant triumphantly exclaimed,

"Well judgeth my Lord Constable, to withdraw his noble Lady from

the host of petticoated empirics, who, like so many Amazons, break

in upon and derange the regular course of physical practice, with

their petulant prognostics, their rash recipes, their mithridate,

their febrifuges, their amulets, and their charms. Well speaketh

the Ethnic poet,

'Non audet, nisi qua didicit, dare quod medicorum est;

Promittunt medici--tractant fabrilia fabri,'"

As he repeated these lines with much emphasis, the doctor

permitted his patient's arm to drop from his hand, that he might

aid the cadence with a flourish of his own. "There," said he to

the spectators, "is what none of you understand--no, by Saint

Luke, nor the Constable himself."

"But he knows how to whip in a hound that babbles when he should

be busy," said Raoul; and, silenced by this hint, the chirurgeon

betook himself to his proper duty, of superintending the removal

of young Damian to an apartment in the neighbouring street, where

the symptoms of his disorder seemed rather to increase than

diminish, and speedily required all the skill and attention which

the leech could bestow.

The subscription of the contract of marriage had, as already

noticed, been just concluded, when the company assembled on the

occasion were interrupted by the news of Damian's illness. When

the Constable led his bride from the court-yard into the apartment

where the company was assembled, there was discomposure and

uneasiness on the countenance of both; and it was not a little

increased by the bride pulling her hand hastily from the hold of

the bridegroom, on observing that the latter was stained with

recent blood, and had in truth left the same stamp upon her own.

With a faint exclamation she showed the marks to Rose, saying at

the same time, "What bodes this?--Is this the revenge of the

Bloody-finger already commencing?"

"It bodes nothing, my dearest lady," said Rose--"it is our fears

that are prophets, not those trifles which we take for augury. For

God's sake, speak to my lord! He is surprised at your agitation."

"Let him ask me the cause himself," said Eveline; "fitter it

should be told at his bidding, than be offered by me unasked."

The Constable, while his bride stood thus conversing with her

maiden, had also observed, that in his anxiety to assist his

nephew, he had transferred part of his blood from his own hands to

Eveline's dress. He came forward to apologize for what at such a

moment seemed almost ominous. "Fair lady," said he, "the blood of

a true De Lacy can never bode aught but peace and happiness to

you."

Eveline seemed as if she would have answered, but could not

immediately find words. The faithful Rose, at the risk of

incurring the censure of being over forward, hastened to reply to

the compliment. "Every damsel is bound to believe what you say, my

noble lord," was her answer, "knowing how readily that blood hath

ever flowed for protecting the distressed, and so lately for our

own relief."

"It is well spoken, little one," answered the Constable; "and the

Lady Eveline is happy in a maiden who so well knows how to speak

when it is her own pleasure to be silent.--Come, lady," he added,

"let us hope this mishap of my kinsman is but like a sacrifice to

fortune, which permits not the brightest hour to pass without some

intervening shadow. Damian, I trust, will speedily recover; and be

we mindful that the blood-drops which alarm you have been drawn by

a friendly steel, and are symptoms rather of recovery than of

illness.--Come, dearest lady, your silence discourages our

friends, and wakes in them doubts whether we be sincere in the

welcome due to them. Let me be your sewer," he said; and, taking a

silver ewer and napkin from the standing cupboard, which was

loaded with plate, he presented them on his knee to his bride.

Exerting herself to shake off the alarm into which she had been

thrown by some supposed coincidence of the present accident with

the apparition at Baldringham, Eveline, entering into her

betrothed husband's humour, was about to raise him from the

ground, when she was interrupted by the arrival of a hasty

messenger, who, coming into the room without ceremony, informed

the Constable that his nephew was so extremely ill, that if he

hoped to see him alive, it would be necessary he should come to

his lodgings instantly.

The Constable started up, made a brief adieu to Eveline and to the

guests, who, dismayed at this new and disastrous intelligence,

were preparing to disperse themselves, when, as he advanced

towards the door, he was met by a Paritor, or Summoner of the

Ecclesiastical Court, whose official dress had procured him

unobstructed entrance into the precincts of the abbey.

_"Deus vobiscum,"_ said the paritor; "I would know which of

this fair company is the Constable of Chester?"

"I am he," answered the elder De Lacy; "but if thy business be not

the more hasty, I cannot now speak with thee--I am bound on

matters of life and death."

"I take all Christian people to witness that I have discharged my

duty," said the paritor, putting into the hand of the Constable a

slip of parchment.

"How is this, fellow?" said the Constable, in great indignation--

"for whom or what does your master the Archbishop take me, that he

deals with me in this uncourteous fashion, citing me to compear

before him more like a delinquent than a friend or a nobleman?"

"My gracious lord," answered the paritor, haughtily, "is

accountable to no one but our Holy Father the Pope, for the

exercise of the power which is intrusted to him by the canons of

the Church. Your lordship's answer to my citation?"

"Is the Archbishop present in this city?" said the Constable,

after a moment's reflection--"I knew not of his purpose to travel

hither, still less of his purpose to exercise authority within

these bounds."

"My gracious lord the Archbishop," said the paritor, "is but now

arrived in this city, of which he is metropolitan; and, besides,

by his apostolical commission, a legate _a latere_ hath

plenary jurisdiction throughout all England, as those may find

(whatsoever be their degree) who may dare to disobey his summons."

"Hark thee, fellow," said the Constable, regarding the paritor

with a grim and angry countenance, "were it not for certain

respects, which I promise thee thy tawny hood hath little to do

with, thou wert better have swallowed thy citation, seal and all,

than delivered it to me with the addition of such saucy terms. Go

hence, and tell your master I will see him within the space of an

hour, during which time I am delayed by the necessity of attending

a sick relation."

The paritor left the apartment with more humility in his manner

than when he had entered, and left the assembled guests to look

upon each other in silence and dismay.

The reader cannot fail to remember how severely the yoke of the

Roman supremacy pressed both on the clergy and laity of England

during the reign of Henry II. Even the attempt of that wise and

courageous monarch to make a stand for the independence of his

throne in the memorable case of Thomas a Becket, had such an

unhappy issue, that, like a suppressed rebellion, it was found to

add new strength to the domination of the Church. Since the

submission of the king in that ill-fated struggle, the voice of

Rome had double potency whenever it was heard, and the boldest

peers of England held it more wise to submit to her imperious

dictates, than to provoke a spiritual censure which had so many

secular consequences. Hence the slight and scornful manner in

which the Constable was treated by the prelate Baldwin struck a

chill of astonishment into the assembly of friends whom he had

collected to witness his espousals; and as he glanced his haughty

eye around, he saw that many who would have stood by him through

life and death in any other quarrel, had it even been with his

sovereign, were turning pale at the very thought of a collision

with the Church. Embarrassed, and at the same time incensed at

their timidity, the Constable hasted to dismiss them, with the

general assurance that all would be well--that his nephew's

indisposition was a trifling complaint, exaggerated by a conceited

physician, and by his own want of care--and that the message of

the Archbishop, so unceremoniously delivered, was but the

consequence of their mutual and friendly familiarity, which

induced them sometimes, for the jest's sake, to reverse or neglect

the ordinary forms of intercourse.--"If I wanted to speak with the

prelate Baldwin on express business and in haste, such is the

humility and indifference to form of that worthy pillar of the

Church, that I should not fear offence," said the Constable, "did

I send the meanest horseboy in my troop to ask an audience of

him."

So he spoke--but there was something in his countenance which

contradicted his words; and his friends and relations retired from

the splendid and joyful ceremony of his espousals as from a

funeral feast, with anxious thoughts and with downcast eyes.

Randal was the only person, who, having attentively watched the

whole progress of the affair during the evening, ventured to

approach his cousin as he left the house, and asked him, "in the

name of their reunited friendship, whether he had nothing to

command him?" assuring him, with a look more expressive than his

words, that he would not find him cold in his service.

"I have nought which can exercise your zeal, fair cousin," replied

the Constable, with the air of one who partly questioned the

speaker's sincerity; and the parting reverence with which he

accompanied his words, left Randal no pretext for continuing his

attendance, as he seemed to have designed.