Rebecca and Rowena Read online

  REBECCA AND ROWENA: A ROMANCE UPON ROMANCE

  by

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Estes and Lauriat Copyright 1883

  CHAPTER I.

  THE OVERTURE. COMMENCEMENT OF THE BUSINESS.

  WELL-BELOVED novel-readers and gentle patronesses of romance, assuredly

  it has often occurred to every one of you, that the books we delight in

  have very unsatisfactory, conclusions, and end quite prematurely with

  page 320 of the third volume. At that epoch of the history it is well

  known that the hero is seldom more than thirty years old, and the

  heroine by consequence some seven or eight years younger; and I would

  ask any of you whether it is fair to suppose that people after the

  above age have nothing worthy of note in their lives, and cease to

  exist as they drive away from Saint George's, Hanover Square?

  You, dear young ladies, who get your knowledge of life from the

  circulating library, may be led to imagine that when the marriage

  business is done, and Emilia is whisked off in the new

  travelling-carriage, by the side of the enraptured Earl; or Belinda,

  breaking away from the tearful embraces of her excellent mother, dries

  her own lovely eyes upon the throbbing waistcoat of her bridegroom you

  may be apt, I say, to suppose that all is over then; that Emilia and

  the Earl are going to be happy for the rest of their lives in his

  lordship's romantic castle in the North, and Belinda and her young

  clergyman to enjoy uninterrupted bliss in their rose-trellised

  parsonage in the West of England: but some there be among the

  novel-reading classes old experienced folks who know better than this.

  Some there be who have been married, and found that they have still

  something to see and to do, and to suffer mayhap; and that adventures,

  and pains, and pleasures, and taxes, and sunrises and settings, and the

  business and joys and griefs of life go on after, as before the nuptial

  ceremony.

  Therefore I say, it is an unfair advantage which the novelist takes of

  hero and heroine, as of his inexperienced reader, to say good-by to the

  two former, as soon as ever they are made husband and wife; and I have

  often wished that additions should be made to all works of fiction

  which have been brought to abrupt terminations in the manner described;

  and that we should hear what occurs to the sober married man, as well

  as to the ardent bachelor; to the matron, as well as to the blushing

  spinster. And in this respect I admire (and would desire to imitate,)

  the noble and prolific French author, Alexandre Dumas, who carries his

  heroes from early youth down to the most venerable old age; and does

  not let them rest until they are so old, that it is full time the poor

  fellows should get a little peace and quiet. A hero is much too

  valuable a gentleman to be put upon the retired list, in the prime and

  vigor of his youth; and I wish to know what lady among us would like to

  be put on the shelf, and thought no longer interesting, because she has

  a family growing up, and is four or five and thirty years of age? I

  have known ladies at sixty, with hearts as tender and ideas as romantic

  as any young misses of sixteen. Let us have middle-aged novels then,

  as well as your extremely juvenile legends: let the young ones be

  warned that the old folks have a right to be interesting: and that a

  lady may continue to have a heart, although she is somewhat stouter

  than she was when a schoolgirl, and a man his feelings, although he

  gets his hair from Truefitt's.

  Thus I would desire that the biographies of many of our most

  illustrious personages of romance should be continued by fitting hands,

  and that they should be heard of, until at least a decent age. Look at

  Mr. James's heroes: they invariably marry young. Look at Mr.

  Dickens's: they disappear from the scene when they are mere chits. I

  trust these authors, who are still alive, will see the propriety of

  telling us something more about people in whom we took a considerable

  interest, and who must be at present strong and hearty, and in the fall

  vigor of health and intellect.

  And in the tales of the great Sir Walter (may honor be to his name), I

  am sure there are a number of people who are untimely carried away from

  us, and of whom we ought to hear more.

  My dear Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, has always, in my mind,

  been one of these; nor can I ever believe that such a woman, so

  admirable, so tender, so heroic, so beautiful, could disappear

  altogether before such another woman as Rowena, that vapid,

  flaxen-headed creature, who is, in my humble opinion, unworthy of

  Ivanhoe, and unworthy of her place as heroine. Had both of them got

  their rights, it ever seemed to me that Rebecca would have had the

  husband, and Rowena would have gone off to a convent and shut herself

  up, where I, for one, would never have taken the trouble of inquiring

  for her.

  But after all she married Ivanhoe. What is to be done?

  There is no help for it. There it is in black and white at the end of

  the third volume of Sir Walter Scott's chronicler that the couple were

  joined together in matrimony. And must the Disinherited Knight, whose

  blood has been fired by the suns of Palestine, and whose heart has been

  warmed in the company of the tender and beautiful Rebecca, sit down

  contented for life by the side of such a frigid piece of propriety as

  that icy, faultless, prim, niminy-piminy Rowena? Forbid it fate,

  forbid it poetical justice! There is a simple plan for setting matters

  right, and giving all parties their due, which is here submitted to the

  novel-reader. Ivanhoe's history must have had a continuation; and it

  is this which ensues. I may be wrong in some particulars of the

  narrative, as what writer will not be? but of the main incidents of

  then history, I have in my own mind no sort of doubt, and confidently

  submit them to that generous public which likes to see virtue righted,

  true love rewarded, and the brilliant Fairy descend out of the blazing

  chariot at the end of the pantomime, and make Harlequin and Columbine

  happy. What, if reality be not so, gentleman and ladies; and if, after

  dancing a variety of jigs and antics, and jumping in and out of endless

  trap-doors and windows through life's shifting scenes, no fairy comes

  down to make us comfortable at the close of the performance? Ah! let

  us give our honest novel-folks the benefit of their position, and not

  be envious of their good luck.

  No person who has read the preceding volumes of this history, as the

  famous chronicler of Abbotsford has recorded them, can doubt for a

  moment what was the result of the marriage between Sir Wilfrid of

  Ivanhoe and Lady Rowena. Those who have marked her conduct during her

  maidenhood, her dislanguished politeness, her spotless modesty or


  demeanor, her unalterable coolness under all circumstances, and her

  lofty and gentle womanlike bearing, must be sure that her married

  conduct would equal her spinster behavior, and that Rowena the wife

  would be a pattern of correctness for all the matrons of England.

  Such Was the fact. For miles around Rotherwood her character for piety

  was known. Her castle was a rendezvous for all the clergy and monks of

  the district, whom she fed with the richest viands, while she pinched

  herself upon pulse and water. There was not an invalid in the three

  Ridings, Saxon or Norman, but the palfrey of the Lady Rowena might be

  seen journeying to his door, in company with Father Glauber, her

  almoner, and Brother Thomas of Epsom, her leech. She lighted up all

  the churches in Yorkshire with wax-candles, the offerings of her piety.

  The bells of her chapel began to ring at two o'clock in the morning;

  and all the domestics of Rotherwood were called upon to attend at

  matins, at complins, at hormones, at vespers, and at sermon. I need

  not say that fasting was observed with all the rigors of the Church;

  and that those of the servants of the Lady Rowena were looked upon with

  most favor whose hair-shirts were the roughest, and who flagellated

  themselves with the most becoming perseverance.

  Whether it was that this discipline cleared poor Wamba's wits or cooled

  his humor, it is certain that he became the most melancholy fool in

  England, and if ever he ventured upon a pun to the shuddering poor

  servitors, who were mumbling their dry crusts below the salt, it was

  such a faint and stale joke that nobody dared to laugh at the

  innuendoes of the unfortunate wag, and a sickly smile was the best

  applause he could minister. Once, indeed, when Guffo, the goose-boy (a

  half-witted poor wretch), laughed outright at a lamentably stale pun

  which Wamba palmed upon him at supper-time, (it was dark, and the

  torches being brought in, Wamba said, "Guffo, they can't see their way

  in the argument, and are going __to throw a little light upon the

  _subject,") the Lady Rowena, being disturbed in a theological

  controversy with Father Willibald, (afterwards canonized as St.

  Willibald, of Bareacres, hermit and confessor,) called out to know what

  was the cause of the unseemly interruption, and Guffo and Wamba being

  pointed out as the culprits, ordered them straightway into the

  court-yard, and three dozen to be administered to each of them.

  "I got you out of Front-de-Boeuf's castle," said poor Wamba, piteously,

  appealing to Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, "and canst thou not save me from

  the lash?"

  "Yes, from Front-de-Boeuf's castle, __where you were locked up with the

  Jewess in the _tower!" said Rowena, haughtily replying, to the timid

  appeal of her husband. "Gurth, give him four dozen!"

  And this was all poor Wamba got by applying for the mediation of his

  master.

  In fact, Rowena knew her own dignity so well as a princess of the royal

  blood of England, that Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, her consort, could

  scarcely call his life his own, and was made, in all things, to feel

  the inferiority of his station. And which of us is there acquainted

  with the sex that has not remarked this propensity in lovely woman, and

  how often the wisest in the council are made to be as fools at her

  board, and the boldest in the battle-field are craven when facing her

  distaff?

  "__Where you were locked up with the Jewess in the _tower," was a

  remark, too, of which Wilfrid keenly felt, and perhaps the reader will

  understand, the significancy. When the daughter of Isaac of York

  brought her diamonds and rubies the poor gentle victim! and, meekly

  laying them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign

  lands to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the bootless

  passion which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that

  the heart of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and

  humility, and that she would have been generous in the moment of her

  victory.

  But did you ever know a right-minded woman pardon another for being

  handsome and more love-worthy than herself? The Lady Rowena did

  certainly say with mighty magnanimity to the Jewish maiden, "Come and

  live with me as a sister, as the former part of this history shows; but

  Rebecca knew in her heart that her ladyship's proposition was what is

  called _bosh (in that noble Eastern language with which Wilfrid the

  Crusader was familiar), or fudge, in plain Saxon; and retired with a

  broken, gentle spirit, neither able to bear the sight of her rival's

  happiness, nor willing to disturb it by the contrast of her own

  wretchedness. Rowena, like the most high-bred and virtuous of women,

  never forgave Isaac's daughter her beauty, nor her flirtation with

  Wilfrid (as the Saxon lady chose to term it) ; nor, above all, her

  admirable diamonds and jewels, although Rowena was actually in

  possession of them.

  In a word, she was always flinging Rebecca into Ivanhoe's teeth. There

  was not a day in his life but that unhappy warrior was made to remember

  that a Hebrew damsel had been in love with him, and that a Christian

  lady of fashion could never forgive the insult. For instance, if

  Gurth, the swineherd, who was now promoted to be a gamekeeper and

  verderer, brought the account of a famous wild-boar in the wood, and

  proposed a hunt, Rowena would say, "Do, Sir Wilfrid, persecute these

  poor pigs: you know your friends the Jews can't abide them! Or when,

  as it oft would happen, our lionhearted monarch, Richard, in order to

  get a loan or a benevolence from the Jews, would roast a few of the

  Hebrew capitalists, or extract some of the principal rabbis' teeth,

  Rowena would exult and say, "Serve them right, the misbehaving

  wretches! England can never be a happy country until every one of

  these monsters is exterminated! or else, adopting a strain of still

  more savage sarcasm, would exclaim, "Ivanhoe my dear, more persecution

  for the Jews! Hadn't you better interfere, my love?

  His Majesty will do anything for you; and, you know, the Jews were

  __always such favorites of _yours," or words to that effect.

  But, nevertheless, her ladyship never lost an opportunity of wearing

  Rebecca's jewels at court, whenever the Queen held a drawing-room; or

  at the York assizes and ball, when she appeared there: not of course

  because she took any interest in such things, but because she

  considered it her duty to attend, as one of the chief ladies of the

  county.

  Thus Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, having attained the height of his wishes,

  was, like many a man when he has reached that dangerous elevation,

  disappointed. Ah, dear friends, it is but too often so in life! Many

  a garden, seen from a distance, looks fresh and green, which, when

  beheld closely, is dismal and weedy; the shady walks melancholy and

  grass-grown; the bowers you would fain repose in, cushioned with

  stinging-nettles. I have ridden in a caique upon the waters of the

  Bosphorus, and looked upon the capi
tal of the Soldan of Turkey. As

  seen from those blue waters, with palace and pinnacle, with gilded dome

  and lowering cypress, it seemeth a very Paradise of Mahound: but, enter

  the city, and it is but a beggarly labyrinth of rickety huts and dirty

  alleys, where the ways are steep and the smells are foul, ten anted by

  mangy dogs and ragged beggars a dismal illusion! Life is such, ah,

  well-a-day! It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness

  and a deceit.

  Perhaps a man with Ivanhoe's high principles would never bring himself

  to acknowledge this fact; but others did for him. He grew thin, and

  pined away as much as if he had been in a fever under the scorching sun

  of Ascalon. He had no appetite for his meals; he slept ill, though he

  was yawning all day. The jangling of the doctors and friars whom

  Rowena brought together did not in the least enliven him, and he would

  sometimes give proofs of somnolency during their disputes, greatly to

  the consternation of his lady. He hunted a good deal, and, I very much

  fear, as Rowena rightly remarked, that he might have an excuse for

  being absent from home. He began to like wine, too, who had been as

  sober as a hermit; and when he came back from Athelstane's (whither he

  would repair not un frequently the unsteadiness of his gait and the

  unnatural brilliancy of his eye were remarked by his lady: who, you may

  be sure, was sitting up for him. As for Athelstane, he swore by St.

  Wullstan that he was glad to have escaped a marriage with such a

  pattern of propriety; and honest Cedric the Saxon (who had been very

  speedily driven out of his daughter-in-law's castle) vowed by St.

  Waltheof that his son had bought a dear bargain.

  So Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe became almost as tired of England as his

  royal master Richard was, (who always quitted the country when he had

  squeezed from his loyal nobles, commons, clergy, and Jews, all the

  money which he could get,) and when the lionhearted Prince began to

  make war against the French King, in Normandy and Guienne, Sir Wilfrid

  pined like a true servant to be in company of the good champion,

  alongside of whom he had shivered so many lances, and dealt such woundy

  blows of sword and battle-axe on the plains of Jaffa or the breaches of

  Acre. Travellers were welcome at Rotherwood that brought news from the

  camp of the good King: and I warrant me that the knight listened with

  all his might when Father Drono, the chaplain, read in the _St.

  _James's _Chronykyll (which was the paper of news he of Ivanhoe took

  in) of "another glorious triumph" - "Defeat of the French near Blois" -

  "Splendid victory at Epte, and narrow escape of the French King:" the

  which deeds of arms the learned scribes had to narrate.

  However such tales might excite him during the reading, they left the

  Knight of Ivanhoe only the more melancholy after listening: and the

  more moody as he sat in his great hall silently draining his Gascony

  wine. Silently sat he and looked at his coats-of-mail hanging vacant

  on the wall, his banner covered with spider-webs, and his sword and axe

  rusting there. "Ah, dear axe," sighed he (into his drinking-horn) -

  "ah, gentle steel!

  that was a merry time when I sent thee crashing into the pate of the

  Emir Abdul Melik as he rode on the right of Saladin. Ah, my sword, my

  dainty headsman? my sweet split-rib? my razor of infidel beards! is

  the rust to eat thine edge off, and am I never more to wield thee in

  battle? What is the use of a shield on a wall, or a lance that has a

  cobweb for a pennon? O Richard, my good king, would I could bear once

  more thy voice in the front of the onset! Bones of Brian the Templar?

  would ye could rise from your grave at Templestowe, and that we might

  break another spear for honor and and"

  "And _Rebecca," he would have said; but the knight paused here in

  rather a guilty, panic: and her Royal Highness the Princess Rowena (as