THE CONFESSOR. A NOVEL. "The renegade, On whose base brutal nature unredeem'd No deeper reprobation." SOUTHEY'S RODERICK. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1851. 249. W. 481. THE CONFESSOR. CHAPTER I. QUEEN. And must we be divided? must we part? K. RICH. Aye, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart. KING RICHARD II. MEANWHILE there were lonely hearts and weary spirits at Oxford, awaiting the tidings on which, for the most part, all their hopes depended. The fortunes of some, the dearest affections of others, were staked in this mortal struggle, and, agonising as was the suspense which intervened between each despatch, even more agonising was the gush of feeling which frequently followed its publication. The residence of her Majesty and the Court VOL. III. B at Oxford had rendered that place the resort of a great proportion of the ladies of birth and distinction whose husbands or other relatives were enlisted in the Royal cause; and, on the rare occasion of the arrival of a post from the army, all hearts beat faster, for almost inevitably to some amongst their number was dealt the sharp, keen blow of sudden bereavement, and nought remained to the widowed and the fatherless other than the faint consolation that those they loved had died with honour. To add to the perplexities of the party, the situation of the Court at Oxford was by no means a secure one; and had the Parliamentary troops, as was once apprehended, advanced upon the city, the situation of the Queen, and of the numerous adherents who made that place their rendezvous, must have been very precarious. But it was not the apprehension of personal danger, influencing many around her, that shadowed the brow of the Lady Katharine Wentworth with a deeper cast of care than it had ever worn before. From the time of Lyndesay's departure for the siege of Gloucester, her spirits had never regained their accustomed cheerfulness; and the anxiety with which she watched for tidings from the army had drawn upon her many a stroke of misdirected raillery; the Prince's assiduities and avowed admiration having given occasion to no less jealousy than remark. By Katharine herself his homage had else been totally forgotten in the far deeper musings which Lyndesay's parting words had awakened within her. In them she found the key to his whole conduct, and, as she fondly told herself, its complete justification, and even in this thought there was happiness. On the other hand, he had gone away deceived, believing in her desertion of him for another; and how should she make known to him the truth?-how explain all that in the simplicity of womanly trust and the innocence of conscious rectitude, she had never before dreamed could need explanation? but which, as she now feared, had destroyed his faith in her for ever. To write to him were not maidenly, even had the state of public communication afforded her a reasonable hope that any letter, save an official despatch, would reach the hand for which it was destined. Whether even he would return to Oxford she knew not, and his farewell to herself |