Page:The fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.djvu/412

404 him, her sweet head reposing, her eyes closed. Kissing her soft hair and fair brow, York disentwined her clasped hands, and rose, addressing the trembling queen:—

"My sister," he said, "you do a deed which calls for blessings from heaven upon you and yours. Till now, such, was my unmanly spirit, the stigma affixed to my name, the disgrace of my ignominious death, made me odious to myself. The weakness of that thought is past; the love of this sweetest sweet, and your kindness restore me. Indeed, my sister, I am York—I am Plantagenet."

"As such," replied the queen, "I ask a boon, for which, selfish as I am, I chiefly came; my brother will not deny me?"

"Trifler, this is vanity. I can give nothing."

"Oh, everything," exclaimed the lady; "years of peace, almost of happiness, in exchange for a life of bitter loneliness and suffering. You, my dearest lord, know the celestial goodness of that fair "White Rose; in adversity and peril you have known it;—I, amidst the cold deceits of a court. She has vowed never to return to her native land, to bear a questioned name among her peers; or perhaps to be forced by her father to change it for one abhorred. Though she must hate me as the wife of her injurer, yet where can she better be than with your sister? She would leave me, for I am Tudor's queen; bid her stay with, her lord's nearest kinswoman; tell her that we will beguile the long years of our too young life with talk of you; tell her that nowhere will she find one so ready to bless your name as poor Elizabeth; implore her, ah! on my knees do I implore you to bid her not to leave me, a dead-alive, a miserable, bereft creature, such, as I was ere I knew her love."

"What say'st thou, sweet?" asked Richard; "am I yet monarch of that soft heart? Will my single subject obey the crownless Richard?"

Katherine stretched out her hand to the queen, who was at York's feet, in token of compliance: she could not speak; it was a mighty effort to press the fingers of Elizabeth slightly; who said,—

"Before heaven and your dear lord, I claim your promise; you are mine for ever."

"A precious gift, my Bess; was it not thus my infant lips called you? I trust her to you; and so the sting of death is blunted. Yet let not too fond a lingering on one passed away, tarnish the bright hours that may yet be in store for her. Forget me, sweet ones; I am nought; a vapour which death and darkness inhales—best unremembered. Yet while I live I would ask one question—our victim-cousin, Edward of Warwick?"