Ginevra

Ginevra by Susan E. Wallace (1887)

Baron of an ancient English castle raises his motherless daughter Ginevra, named for her mother who died at her birth, with fierce protectiveness, having once held up his sword before his assembled men and made every one swear to defend Lady Ginevra to the death. He assigns the soldier Ban, who bears a scar from saving the Baron's life, to guard her always. Ginevra grows up gentle, beloved by all, taught embroidery, lute, and song rather than books, and spends her days roaming the castle's gardens, balcony, and the forest edge near Edith's fountain with her maid Geta and Ban close behind. At fifteen, by the fountain, she and Geta meet a youth with a stag-hound and his page, Alfred, riding a red roan; the youth sings of King Arthur and of love, and Ginevra gives him the red rose from her hair before he rides off. The Baron recognizes the description as Lord Lovel, and reveals Ginevra was betrothed to him in the cradle; a betrothal feast is set for her sixteenth birthday. At the Christmas betrothal feast, Ginevra teases Lovel by hiding from him among the hall's columns, and he begs her never to flee from him again except to Heaven. A disguised old minstrel begs to look on Ginevra; mocked under the mistletoe for his raggedness, he is instead crowned by Ginevra with an ivy wreath and invited to play. His song and his unveiling reveal him as Prince Edward, who sings his own love for Ginevra and offers his hand and England's crown. The Baron says she must wed whom she wills, and she refuses the Prince, declaring she will wed her own true love or become a nun. Lovel departs for the Holy Land for a year and a day; Ginevra waits faithfully, and Prince Edward soon marries elsewhere, as Ban predicted. Six months later a carrier-dove brings word that Lovel will return home by Christmas. The Baron buys Ginevra's wedding clothes in London, including white velvet slippers embroidered with pearls, and gives her, the night before the wedding, her dead mother's ivory box of pearls and the wedding ring engraved "Ginevra," said to carry a charm of good fortune. That stormy snowy night, uneasy and fearful, the Baron has Ginevra dressed in his Siberian mantle and holds her as a child again by the fire in the brown parlor beneath her mother's portrait, singing her to sleep with songs of Norse kings until dawn. The wedding takes place the next day despite heavy snow. During the feast, Ginevra is discovered missing. Lord Lovel and the guests search the castle in panic, recalling the old prophecy that Ginevra was doomed to sorrow. Alfred and Lovel hear faint sounds near the staircase but find nothing. The Baron organizes search parties through every wing, vault, and cellar; nothing is found through the night, and at daybreak the mysterious tower bell tolls seventeen times with no one in the bell-tower to ring it. Four days and nights pass in fruitless searching; the Baron's hair turns white, and he offers half his barony to whoever finds her, in vain. Months and then a year pass with the moat dragged and the castle searched without result. Despairing, Lovel resolves to fight the Turk in the Holy Land; the Baron gives him his own sword, and Lovel is killed and buried there, Ginevra's picture on his breast. Geta and Alfred marry and raise children in the castle, telling Christmas tales of hearing Ginevra's footsteps. The Baron searches ceaselessly until he is found dead on the staircase, clutching her faded slippers, and is buried in the family vault. The castle stands empty and decaying for a hundred years, believed haunted, until new owners' workmen find a secret door and an old oak chest that, when moved, bursts open to reveal a skeleton wearing a pearl coronet and the engraved wedding ring: Ginevra had hidden in the chest during the wedding-day game and been trapped forever by its spring lock.

By Susan E. Wallace · First published 1887 · Genre: Gothic Romance, Tragedy, Gothic Fiction · 4 chapters · 9,549 words

First lines

Many years ago there lived in an ancient castle in England a proud Baron, who had one child, Ginevra, a little girl named for her mother, who died the night her baby was born.

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medieval romance · Gothic fiction · medieval England · mysterious disappearance · castle · betrothal · prophecy · tragic love · supernatural · paternal love · unfulfilled love · loss and grief

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Ginevra is listed on Textopian as a novella by Susan E. Wallace, dated 1887 CE.

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