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,
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
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