"Yet the helpless ivy would fain twine round the proud lord of the woods," replied the lady, somewhat coyly. "Be thou sure, Sir Knight, my heart grieveth sore for thee. I promise thee that thou shalt have my prayers."
And shortly afterwards the pair parted at the abbey gate.
CHAPTER XXIV.
"DE MORTUIS."
"O God, that it were possible, after long years of pain,
To find the arms of my true love around me once again!"
"The walls where hung the warriors' shining casques
Are green with moss and mould;
The blind worm coils where queens have slept, nor asks
For shelter from the cold."
Three years had passed since John de Standen pulled down the stronghold of the De Beauchamps. William de Beauchamp, making the best of the necessity which was forced upon him, set to work to erect himself a house between the inner and outer bailey. It still went by the name of the castle. Unfortunately no plan or description of this building has been handed down to us. It only existed for about twice as long as its predecessor, the Norman keep of Pain de Beauchamp. Camden, writing in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, describes it as a stately ruin overhanging the Ouse; and an old map of about the same time shows that these ruins occupied a pleasant position a little back from the river, and looking south. As it was strictly an unfortified mansion, we may opine that it was much such a building as that which we have described at Bletsoe, consisting of a large, long hall, with private apartments at one end one story high, but larger and built of stone.
In one of these apartments, one afternoon in the summer of 1227, sat Aliva de Pateshulle, now Aliva de Beauchamp, with her baby-boy upon her knee. She was looking out of the round, arched window, which was somewhat larger than the shuttered apertures in the old keep. The house was intended for a comfortable dwelling, and not for a place of defence. The walls were not half the thickness of those which had enclosed her prison of three years before, though built of identically the same stones. The rooms, too, were lighter, larger, and more habitable. The science of domestic architecture was beginning.
Aliva herself was also a more fully developed specimen of beautiful young womanhood. The angularity of her tall figure had disappeared, and there was more ripeness and fulness about her cheeks and mouth. But her large gray eyes remained unchanged. Her beautiful fair hair, perhaps a shade darker than it had been when it hung down over her shoulders that morning in the garden at Bletsoe, was partly covered with the ugly wimple, the matronly head-dress of the period, which had replaced the maidenly fillet.
Aliva was gazing from the window, which commanded a view of the river, and was apparently watching for the approach of some one from the entrance to the west. Presently she waved her hand in that direction, and holding up the boy to the window, bade him look down at his father.
Ralph entered the house, crossed the large hall, and made his way to his wife's apartment. He also had somewhat altered in three years. His massive frame had filled out, and with his large limbs more covered with flesh and muscle, he looked even more like a young giant than he had done that eve of the Assumption when he had fought his way into the keep.