CHAPTER IX.
GUENDOLEN.
"The sweetest lady of the time,-- Well worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid."
ALFRED TENNYSON.
A sister of Guendolen's departed mother, Abbess of St. Hilda, a womanof unusual intellect, and judgment, character and feelings, in nodegree inferior to her talents, had taken charge of her orphan nieceimmediately after the mother's death, and had brought her up, a flowerliterally untouched by the sun as by the storms of the world, in theserene and tranquil life of the cloister, when the cloister was indeedthe seat of piety, and purity, and peace; in some cases the onlyrefuge from the violence and savage lusts of those rugged days; neverthen the abode, at least in England, of morose bigotry or fiercefanaticism, but the home of quiet contemplation, of meek virtue, andpeaceful cheerfulness.
The monasteries and priories of those days were not the sullen gaolsof the soul, the hives of drones, or the schools of ignorance andbitter sectarian persecution which they have become in these latterdays, nor were their inmates then immured as the tenants of thedungeon cell.
The abbey lands were ever the best tilled; the abbey tenants ever thehappiest, the best clad, the richest, and the freest of the peasantryof England. The monks, those of Saxon race especially, were thecountry curates of the twelfth century; it was they who fed thehungry, who medicined the sick, who consoled the sad at heart, whosupported the widow and the fatherless, who supported the oppressed,and smoothed the passage through the dark portals to the dyingChristian. There were no poor laws in those days, nor alms-houses; theopen gates and liberal doles of the old English abbeys bestowedunstinted and ungrudging charity on all who claimed it. The abbot onhis soft-paced palfrey, or the prioress on her well-trained jennet, asthey made their progresses through the green fields and humble hamletsof their dependents, were hailed ever with deferential joy andaffectionate reverence; and the serf, who would lout sullenly beforethe haughty brow of his military chief, and scowl savagely with handon the dudgeon hilt after he had ridden past, would run a mile toremove a fallen trunk from the path of the jolly prior, or three, toguide the jennet of the mild-eyed lady abbess through the difficultford, or over the bad bit of the road, and think himself richly paidby a benediction.
In such a tranquil tenor had been passed the early years of thebeautiful young Guendolen; and while she learned every accomplishmentof the day--for in those days the nunneries were the schools of allthat was delicate, and refined, and gentle, the schools of the softerarts, especially of music and illumination, as were the monasteriesthe shrines which alone kept alive the fire of science, and nursed thelamp of letters, undying through those dark and dreary ages--shelearned also to be humble-minded, no less than holy-hearted, to becompassionate, and kind, and sentient of others' sorrows; she learned,above all things, that meekness and modesty, and a gentle bearingtoward the lowliest of her fellow-beings, were the choicest ornamentsto a maiden of the loftiest birth.
Herself a Norman of the purest Norman strain, descended from those ofwhom, if not kings themselves, kings were descended, who claimed to bethe peers of the monarchs to whom their own good swords gave royalty,she had never imbibed one idea of scorn for the conquered, thedebased, the downfallen Saxon.
The kindest, the gentlest, the sagest, and at the same time the mostrefined and polished of all her preceptors, her spiritual pastor also,and confessor, was an old Saxon monk, originally from the convent ofBurton on the Trent, who had migrated northward, and pitched the tentof his declining years in a hermitage situate in the glade of a deepNorthumbrian wood, not far removed from the priory over which her auntpresided with so much dignity and grace.
He had been a pilgrim, a prisoner in the Holy Land, had visited thewild monasteries of Lebanon and Athos; he had seen the pyramids"piercing the deep Egyptian sky," had mused under the broken arches ofthe Coliseum, and listened, like the great historian of Rome, to thebare-footed friars chanting their hymns among the ruins of JupiterCapitoline.
Like Ulysses, he had seen the lands, he had studied the manners, andlearned to speak the tongues, of many men and nations; nor, while hehad learned in the east strange mysteries of science, though he hadsolved the secrets of chemistry, and learned, long before the birth of"starry Galileo," to know the stars with their uprisings and theirsettings; though he knew the nature, the properties, the secretvirtues, and the name of every floweret of the forest, of every ore ofthe swart mine, he had not neglected the gentler culture, whichwreathes so graciously the wrinkled brow of wisdom. Not a poethimself, so far as the weaving the mysterious chains of rhythm, he wasa genuine poet of the heart. Not a blush, not a smile, not a tear, nota frown on the lovely face of nature, but awakened a response in hislarge and sympathetic soul; not an emotion of the human heart, fromthe best to the basest, but struck within him some chord of deep andhidden feeling; to read an act of self-devoted courage, of charity, ofgenerosity, of self-denial, would make his flesh quiver, his hairrise, his cheek burn. To hear of great deeds would stir him as withthe blast of a war trumpet. He was one, in fact, of those giftedbeings who could discern
"Music in running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing;"
and as he felt himself, so had he taught her to feel; and of what heknew himself, much he had taught her to know likewise.
Seeing, hearing, knowing him to be what he was, and, as is the wontever with young and ingenuous minds, imagining him to be something farwiser, greater, and better than he really was, she was content atfirst, while other men were yet unknown to her, to hold him somethingalmost supernaturally, ineffably beneficent and wise; and thisincomparable being she knew also to be a Saxon. She saw her aunt, who,gentle as she was, and gracious, had yet a touch of the old Norsepride of blood, untutored by the teachings of religion, and untamed bythe discipline of the church, bow submissively to his advice, deferrespectfully to his opinion, hang persuaded on his eloquence--and yethe was a Saxon.
When she burst from girlhood into womanhood--when her father, returnedfrom the honors and the toils of foreign service, introduced her intothe grand scenes of gorgeous chivalry and royal courtesy, preparatoryto placing her at the head of his house--though she mingled with thepaladins and peers of Normandy and Norman England, she saw not one whocould compare in wisdom, in eloquence, in all that is highest and mostheaven-reaching in the human mind, with the old Saxon, Father Basil.
How then could she look upon the race from which he sprang asinferior--as low and degraded by the hand of nature--when not thesagest statesman, the most royal prince, the proudest chevalier, thegentlest troubadour, could vie with him in one point of intellect orof refinement--with him, the Saxon priest, son himself, as he himselfhad told her, of a Saxon serf.
These were the antecedents, this the character of the beautiful girl,who, on the morning following her adventure in the forest, lay,supported by a pile of cushions, on one of the broad couches in theLady's Bower of Waltheofstow, inhaling the fresh perfumed breath ofthe western air, as it swept in, over the shrubs and flowers in thebartizan, through the window of the turret chamber. She was beautifulas ever, but very pale, and still suffering, as it would seem, fromthe effects of her fall and the injuries she had received in thestruggle with the terrible wild beast; for, whenever she attempted tomove or to turn her body, an expression of pain passed for a momentacross the pure, fair face, and once a slight murmur escaped from herclosed lips.
One or two waiting-maids, of Norman race, attended by the side of hercouch, one of them cooling her brow with a fan of peacock's feathers,the other sprinkling perfumes through the chamber, and now and againstriving to amuse her by reading aloud from a ponderous illuminatedtome, larger than a modern cyclopedia, the interminable adventures andsufferings of that true love, whose "course never did run smooth," andfeats of knightly prowess, recorded in one of the interminableromances of the time. But to none of these did the Lady Guendolenseriously incline her ear; and the faces of the attendant girls beganto wear an expr
ession, not of weariness only, but of discontent, and,perhaps, even of a deeper and bitterer feeling.
The Lady Guendolen was ill at ease; she was, most rare occurrence forone of her soft though impulsive disposition, impatient, perhapsquerulous.
She could not be amused by any of their efforts. Her mind was faraway; she craved something which they could not give, and was restlessat their inability. Three times since her awakening, though the hourwas still early, she had inquired for Sir Yvo, and had sent to desirehis presence. The first time, her messengers brought her back wordthat he had not yet arisen; the second, that he was breakfasting, butnow, in the knight's hall with Sir Philip, and the Sieurs ofMaltravers, De Vesey, and Mauleverer, who had ridden over toWaltheofstow to fly their hawks, and that he would be with her erelong; and the third, that the good knight must have forgotten, forthat he had taken horse and ridden away with the rest of the companyinto the meadows by the banks of brimful Idle, to enjoy the "Mysteryof Rivers," as it was the fashion to term the sport of falconry, inthe high-flown language of the chase.
For a moment her pale face flushed, her eye flashed, and she bit herlip, and drummed impatiently with her little fingers on thevelvet-pillows which supported her aching head; then, smiling at herown momentary ill-humor, she bade her girl Marguerite go seek theSaxon maiden, Edith, if she were in the castle, and if not, to seethat a message should be sent down for her to the serfs' quarter.
With many a toss of her pretty head, and many a wayward feminineexpression of annoyance, which from ruder lips would probably havetaken the shape of an imprecation, the injured damsel betook herself,through winding passages and stairways in the thickness of the wall,to the pages' waiting-chamber on the next floor below. Then tripping,with a demure look, into the square vaulted room, in which werelounging three gayly-dressed, long-haired boys, one twanging a guitarin the embrasure of the window, and the other two playing at tables ona board covered with a scarlet cloth--
"Here, Damian," she said, somewhat sharply, for the temper of themistress is sure to be reflected in that of the maid, losing nothingby the transmission, "for what are you loitering there, with that oldtuneless gittern, when the Lady Guendolen has been calling for youthis hour past?"
"And how, in the name of St. Hubert," replied the boy, who had ratherbeen out with the falconers on the breezy leas, than mewed in the hallto await a lady's pleasure--"how, in the name of St. Hubert! should Iknow that the Lady Guendolen had called for me, when no one has beennear this old den since Sir Yvo rode forth on brown Roncesval, withDiamond on his fist? And as for my gittern being tuneless, I've heardyou tell a different tale, pretty Mistress Marguerite. But let us haveyour message, if you've got one; for I see you're as fidgety as athorough-bred sorrel filly, and as hot-tempered, too."
"Sorrel filly, indeed!" said the girl, half-laughing, half-indignant."I wish you could see my lady, Damian, if you call me fidgety andhot-tempered. I wish you could see my lady, that's just all, thismorning."
"The message, the message, Marguerite, if there be one, or if you haveaught in your head but to make mischief."
"Why, I do believe my lady's bewitched since her fall; for nothingwill go down with her now-a-days but that pink-and-white,flaxen-haired doll, Edith. I can't think what she sees in her, thatshe must needs ever have the clumsy Saxon wench about her. I shouldthink gentle Norman blood might serve her turn."
"I don't know, Marguerite," answered the boy, wishing to tease her;"Edith is a very pretty girl, indeed; I don't know but she's the veryprettiest I ever saw. Dark-haired and dark-eyed people always admiretheir opposites, they say; and for my part, I think her blue eyesglance as if they reflected heaven's own light in them; and herflaxen-hair looks like a cloud high up in heaven, that has just caughtthe first golden glitter of the morning sunbeams. And clumsy! how canyou call her clumsy, Marguerite? I am sure, when she came flittingdown the hill, with her long locks flowing in the breeze, and her thingarments streaming back from her shapely figure, she looked liker to acreature of the air, than to a mere mortal girl, running down a sandyroad. I should like to see you run like her, Mistress Marguerite."
"Me run!" exclaimed the Norman damsel, indignantly; "when ever did yousee a Norman lady _run_? But you're just like the rest of them;caught ever by the first fresh face. Well, sir, since you're sobewitched, like my pretty lady above stairs, with your Saxon angel,the message I have brought you will just meet your humor. You willsee, sir, if this Saxon angel be in the castle, sir; and if she benot, sir, your magnificence will proceed to the Saxon quarter, andrequest her angelship to come forthwith to my lady's chamber, and tocome quickly, too. And you can escort her, Sir Page, and lend her yourhand up the hill; and steal a kiss, if you can, Sir Page, on the way!"
"Just so, Mistress Marguerite," returned the boy, "just so. Yourcommands shall be obeyed to the letter. And as to the kiss, I'll try,if I can get a chance; but I'm afraid she's too modest to kiss youngmen."
And, taking up his dirk and bonnet from the board, he darted out ofthe room, without awaiting her reply, having succeeded, to his heart'scontent, in chafing her to somewhat higher than blood-heat; so thatshe returned to her lady's bower even more discomposed than when sheleft it; but Guendolen was too much occupied with other thoughts tonotice the girl's ill-temper, and within half an hour a light foot washeard at the door, and the Saxon slave girl entered.
"How can I serve you, dear lady?" she said, coming up, and kneeling atthe couch side. "You are very pale. I trust you be not the worse thismorning."
"Very weak, Edith, and sore all over. I feel as if every limb werebroken; and I want you, with your gentle hand and gentle voice, tosoothe me."
"Ah! dearest lady, our Holy Mother send that your spirit never may beso sore as to take no heed of the body's aching, nor your heart sobroken as to know not whether your limbs were torn asunder."