The White Ladies of Worcester - Florence Louisa Barclay (best classic books of all time txt) 📗

learned that already thou wert Prioress of the White Ladies. 'The youngest Prioress in the kingdom,' said the Bishop, 'yet none could be wiser or better fitted to hold high authority.' Little did he dream that any mention of thee was as water to the parched desert; yet he talked on, for love of speaking of thee, while I sat praying he might tell me more; yet barely answering yea or nay, seeming to be absorbed in mine own melancholy thoughts.

"From the Bishop I learned that the Order was a strictly close one, and that no man could, on any pretext whatsoever, gain speech alone with one of the White Ladies.

"But I also heard of the underground way leading from the Cathedral to the Convent, and of the daily walk to and from Vespers.

"I went to the crypt, and saw the doorway through which the White Ladies pass. Standing unseen amid the many pillars, I daily watched the long line of silent figures, noted that they all walked veiled, with faces hidden, keeping a measured distance apart. Also that several were above usual height. Then I conceived the plan of wearing the outer dress, and of stepping in amongst those veiled figures just at the foot of the winding stair in the wall, leading down from the clerestory to the crypt. I marked that the nun descending, could not keep in view the nun in front who had just stepped forth into the crypt; while she, moving forward, would not perceive it if, slipping from behind a pillar, another white figure silently joined the procession behind her. Once within the Convent, I trusted to our Lady to help me to speech alone with thee; and our blessed Lady hath not failed me.

"Now I have told thee all."

With that the Knight left speaking; and, after the long steady recitation, the ceasing of his voice caused a silence which, seemed, to hold the very air suspended.

Not once had the Prioress made interruption. She had sat immovable, her eyes upon his face, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. Long before the tale was finished her sad eyes had overflowed, the tears raining down her cheeks, and falling upon the cross at her breast.

When he had told all, when the deep, manly voice--now resolute, now eager, now vibrant with fierce indignation, yet tender always when speaking of her--at last fell silent, the Prioress fought with her emotion, and mastered it; then, so soon as she could safely trust her voice, she spoke.


CHAPTER XII


ALAS, THE PITY OF IT!

At length the Prioress spoke.

"Alas," she said, "the pity of it! Ah, the cruel, _cruel_ pity of it!"

Her voice, so sweet and tender, yet so hopeless in the unquestioning finality of its regret, struck cold upon the heart of the Knight.

"But, my beloved, I have found thee," he said, and dropping upon one knee at her feet, he put out his hands to cover both hers. But the Prioress was too quick for him. She hid her hands beneath her scapulary. The Knight's brown fingers closed on the lions' heads.

"Touch me not," said the Prioress.

The Knight flushed, darkly.

"You are mine," he said. "Mine to have and to keep. During these wretched years we have schooled ourselves each to think of the other as wedded. Now we know that neither has been faithless. I have found thee, my beloved, and I will not let thee go."

"Hugh," said the Prioress, "I _am_ wedded. You come too late. Saw you not the sacred ring upon my hand? Know you not that every nun is the bride of Christ?"

"You are mine!" said the Knight, fiercely; and he laid his great hand upon her knee.

From beneath her scapulary, the Prioress drew the dagger.

"Before I went to the cloister door," she said, "I took this from its hiding-place, and put it in my girdle. I guessed I had a man to deal with; though, Heaven knows, I dreamed not it was thou! But I tell thee, Hugh, if thou, or any man, attempt to lay defiling touch upon any nun in this Priory--myself, or another--I strike, and I strike home. This blade will be driven up to the hilt in the offender's heart."

The Knight rose to his feet, stepped to the window and leaned, with folded arms, against the wall.

"Put back thy weapon," he said, sternly, "into its hiding-place. No other man is here; yet, should another come, my sword would well suffice to guard thine honour, and the honour of thy nuns."

She looked at his dark face, scornful in its pain; then went at once, obedient, to the secret panel.

"Yes, Hugh," she said. "That much of trust indeed I owe thy love."

As she placed the dagger in the wall and closed the panel, something fell from her, intangible, yet real.

For so long, she had had to command. Bowing, kneeling, hurrying women flew to do her behests. Each vied with the others to magnify her Office. Often, she felt lonely by reason of her dignity.

And now--a man's dark face frowned on her in scornful anger; a man's stern voice flung back her elaborate threat with a short command, which disarmed her, yet which she obeyed. Moreover, she found it strangely sweet to obey. Behind the sternness, behind the scornful anger, there throbbed a great love. In that love she trusted; but with that love she had to deal, putting it from her with a finality which should be beyond question.

Yet the "Prioress" fell from her, as she closed the panel. It was the Woman and the Saint who moved over to the window and stood beside the Knight, in the radiance of a golden sunset after storm.

There was about her, as she spoke, a wistful humbleness; and a patient sadness, infinitely touching.

"Sir Hugh," she said, "my dear Knight, whom I ever found brave and tender, and whom I now know to have been always loyal and true--there is no need that I should add a word to your recital. The facts you wrung from Alfrida--God grant forgiveness to that tormented heart--are all true. Believing the messenger, not dreaming of doubting Eleanor, my one thought was to hide from the world my broken heart, my shattered pride. I hastened to offer to God the love and the life which had been slighted by man. I confess this has since seemed to me but a poor second-best to have brought to Him, Who indeed should have our very best. But, daily kneeling at His Feet, I said: 'A broken and a contrite heart, Lord, Thou wilt not despise.' My heart was 'broken,' when I brought it here. It has been 'contrite' since. And well I know, although so far from worthy, it has not been despised."

She lifted her eyes to the golden glory behind the battlements of purple cloud.

"Our blessed Lady interceded," she said, simply; "she, who understands a woman's heart."

The Knight was breathing hard. The folded arms rose and fell, with the heaving of his chest. But he kept his lips firm shut; though praying, all the while, that our Lady might have, also, some understanding of the heart of a man!

"I think it right that you should know, dear Hugh," went on the sad voice, gently; "that, at first, I suffered greatly. I spent long agonizing nights, kneeling before our Lady's shrine, imploring strength to conquer the love and the longing which had become sin."

A stifled groan broke from the Knight.

The golden light shone in her steadfast eyes, and played about her noble brow.

"And strength was given," she said, very low.

"Mora!" cried the Knight--She started. It was so long since she had heard her own name--"You prayed for strength to conquer, when you thought it sin; just as I rode out to meet the foe, to fight and slay, and afterward wrestled with unknown tongues, doing all those things which were hardest, while striving to quench my love for you. But when I knew that no other man had right to you or ever had had right, why then I found that nothing had slain my love, nor ever could. And Mora, now you know that I am free, is your love dead?"

She clasped her hands over the cross at her breast. His voice held a deep passion of appeal; yet he strove, loyally, to keep it calm.

"Listen, Hugh," she said. "If, thinking me faithless, you had turned for consolation to another; if, though you brought her but your second best, you yet had won and wed her; now, finding after all that I had not wedded Humphry, would you leave your bride, and try to wake again your love for me?"

"You seek to place me," he said, "in straits in which, by mine own act, I shall never be. Loving you as I love you, I could wed no other while you live."

She paled, but persisted.

"But, _if_, Hugh? _If_?"

"Then, no," he said. "I should not leave one I had wed. But----"

"Hugh," she said, "thinking you faithless, I took the holy vows which wedded me to Heaven. How can I leave my heavenly Bridegroom, for love of any man upon this earth?"

"Not 'any man,'" he answered; "but your betrothed, returned to claim you; the man to whom you said as parting words: 'Maid or wife, I am all thine own; thine and none other's forever.' Ah, that brings the warm blood to thy cheek! Oh, my Heart's Life, if it was true then, it is true still! God is not a man that he should lie, or rob another of his bride. If I had wed another woman, I should have done that thing, honestly believing thee the wife of another man. But, all these years, while thou and I were both deceived, He, Who knoweth all, has known the truth. He knew thee betrothed to me. He heard thee say, upon the battlements, when last we stood together: 'God knows, I am all thine own.' He knew how, when I thought I had lost thee, I yet lived faithful to the pure memory of our love. The day thy vows were made, He knew that I was free, and thou, therefore, still pledged to me. Shall a man rob God? Ay, he may. But shall God rob a man? Nay, then, never!"

She trembled, wavered; then fled to the shrine of the Virgin, kneeling with hands outstretched.

"Holy Mother of God," she sobbed, "teach him that I dare not do this thing! Shew him that I cannot break my vows. Help him to understand that I would not, if I could."

He followed, and kneeled beside her; his proud head bent; his voice breaking with emotion.

"Blessed Virgin," he said. "Thou who didst dwell in the earthly home at Nazareth, help this woman of mine to understand, that if she break her troth to me, holding herself from me, now when I am come to claim her, she sends me forth to an empty life, to a hearth beside which no woman will sit, to a