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

Bishop's calmness. It was quick and powerful; it seemed to divide asunder soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And before that two-edged blade could sheathe itself again, swiftly the Bishop spoke.

"Therefore, my dear Hugh, when you arrived with your tale of wrong and treachery, all unconsciously to yourself, every word you spoke of your betrothed revealed her to the man who had loved her while you were yet a youth, with your spurs to win, and all life before you.

"I saw in your arrival, and in the strange tale you told, a wondrous chance for her of that fuller development of life for which I knew her to be so perfectly fitted.

"It had seemed indeed the irony of fate that, while I had fled and dwelt in exile lest my presence should hold her back from marriage, the treachery of others should have driven her into a life of celibacy.

"Therefore while, with my tacit consent, you went to work in your own way, I sent my messenger to Rome bearing to the Holy Father a full account of all, petitioning a dispensation from vows taken owing to deception, and asking leave to unite in the holy sacrament of marriage these long-sundered lovers, undertaking that no scandal should arise therefrom, either in the Nunnery or in the City of Worcester.

"As you have seen, my messenger this night returned; and we now find ourselves armed with the full sanction of His Holiness, providing the Prioress, of her own free will, desires to renounce the high position she has won in her holy calling, and to come to you."

The quiet voice ceased speaking.

The Knight rose slowly to his feet. At first he stood silent. Then he spoke with a calm dignity which proved him worthy of the Bishop's trust.

"I greatly honour you, my lord," he said; "and were our ages and conditions other than they are, so that we might fight for the woman we love, I should be proud to cross swords with you."

The Bishop sat looking into the fire. A faint smile flickered at the corners of the sensitive mouth. The fights he had fought for the woman he loved had been of sterner quality than the mere crossing of knightly swords.

Hugh d'Argent spoke again.

"Profoundly do I thank you, Reverend Father, for all that you have done; and even more, for that which you did not do. It was six years after her first sojourn at the Court that I met Mora, loved her, and won her; and well I know that the sweet love she gave to me was a love from which no man had brushed the bloom."

Hugh paused.

Those kindly and very luminous eyes were still bent upon the fire. Was the Bishop finding it hard to face the fact that his life's secret had now, by his own act, passed into the keeping of another?

Hugh moved a pace nearer.

"And deeply do I love you, Reverend Father, for your wondrous goodness to her, and--for her sake--to me. And I pray heaven," added Hugh d'Argent simply, "that if she come to me, she may never know that she once won the love of so greatly better a man than he who won hers."

With which the Knight dropped upon one knee, and humbly kissed the hem of the Bishop's robe.

Symon of Worcester was greatly moved.

"My son," he said, "we are at one in desiring her happiness and highest good. For the rest, God, and her own pure heart, must guide her feet into the way of peace."

The Bishop rose, and went to the casement.

"The aurora breaks in the east. The dawn is near. Come with me, Hugh, to the chapel. We pray for His Holiness, giving thanks for his gracious letter and mandate; we praise for the safe return of my messenger. But we will also offer up devout petition that the Prioress may have clear light at this parting of the ways, and that our enterprise may be brought to a happy conclusion."

So, presently, in the dimly-lighted chapel, the Knight knelt alone; while, away at the high altar, remote, wrapt, absorbed in the supreme act of his priestly office, stood the Bishop, celebrating mass.

Yet one anxious prayer ascended from the hearts of both.

And, in the pale dawn of that new day, the woman for whom both the Knight and the Bishop prayed, kept vigil in her cell, before the shrine of the Madonna.

"Blessed Virgin," she said; "thou who lovedst Saint Joseph, being betrothed to him, yet didst keep thyself an holy shrine consecrate to the Lord and His need of thee--oh, grant unto me strength to put from me this constant torment at the thought of his sufferings to whom once I gave my troth, and to reconsecrate myself wholly to the service of my Lord."

Thus these three knelt, as a new day dawned.

And the Knight prayed: "Give her to me!"

And the Bishop prayed: "Guide her feet into the way of peace."

And the Prioress, with hands crossed upon her breast and eyes uplifted, said: "Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee."

The silver streaks of the aurora paled before soaring shafts of gold, bright heralds of the rising sun.

Then from the Convent garden trilled softly the first notes, poignant but passing sweet, of the robin's song.


CHAPTER XXV


MARY ANTONY RECEIVES THE BISHOP

The morning after the return from Rome of the Bishop's messenger, the old lay-sister, Mary Antony, chanced to be crossing the Convent courtyard, when there came a loud knocking on the outer gates.

Mary Antony, hastening, thrust aside the buxom porteress, and herself opened the _guichet_, and looked out.

The Lord Bishop, mounted upon his white palfrey, waited without; Brother Philip in attendance.

What a bewildering surprise! What a fortunate thing, thought old Antony, that she should chance to be there to deal with such an emergency.

Never did the Bishop visit the Nunnery, without sending a messenger beforehand to know whether the Prioress could see him, stating the exact hour of his proposed arrival; so that, when the great doors were flung wide and the Bishop rode into the courtyard, the Prioress would be standing at the top of the steps to receive him; Mother Sub-Prioress in attendance in the background; the other holy ladies upon their knees within the entrance; Mary Antony, well out of sight, yet where peeping was possible, because she loved to see the Reverend Mother kneel and kiss the Bishop's ring, rising to her feet again without pause, making of the whole movement one graceful, deep obeisance. After which, Mary Antony, still peeping, greatly loved to see the Prioress mount the wide, stone staircase with the Bishop; each shewing a courtly deference to the other.

(One of Mary Antony's most exalted dreams of heaven, was of a place where she should sit upon a jasper seat and see the Reverend Mother and the great Lord Bishop mounting together interminable flights of golden stairs; while Mother Sub-Prioress and Sister Mary Rebecca looked through black bars, somewhere down below, whence they would have a good view of Mary Antony on her jasper seat, but no glimpse of the golden stairs or of the radiant figures which she watched ascending.)

So much for the usual visits of the Bishop, when everything was in readiness for his reception.

But now, all unexpected, the Bishop waited without the gate, and Mary Antony had to deal with this emergency.

Crying to the porteress to open wide, she hastened to the steps. . . . It was impossible to summon the Reverend Mother in time. . . . The Lord Bishop must not be kept waiting! . . . Even now the great doors were rolling back.

Mary Antony mounted the six steps; then turned in the doorway.

The Lord Bishop must be received. There was nobody else to do it. She would receive the Lord Bishop!

As she saw him riding in upon Icon, blessing the porteress as he passed, she remembered how she had ridden round the river meadow as the Bishop. Now she must play her part as the Prioress.

So it came to pass that, as he rode up to the door and dismounted, flinging his rein to Brother Philip, the Bishop found himself confronted by the queer little figure of the aged lay-sister, drawn up to its full height and obviously upheld by a sense of importance and dignity.

As the Bishop reached the entrance, she knelt and kissed his ring; then tried to rise quickly, failed, and clutching at his hand, exclaimed: "Devil take my old knee-joints!"

Never before had the Bishop been received with such a formula! Never had his ring been kissed by a lay-sister! But remembering the scene when old Antony rode round the field upon Icon, he understood that she now was playing the part of Prioress.

"Good-day, worthy Mother," he said, as he raised her. "The spirit is willing I know, but, in your case, the knee-joints are weak. But no wonder, for they have done you long service. Why, I get up slowly from kneeling, yet my knees are thirty years younger than yours. . . . Nay I will not mount to the Reverend Mother's chamber until you acquaint her of my arrival. Take me round to the garden, and there let me wait in the shade, while you seek her."

Greatly elated at the success of her effort, and emboldened by his charming condescension, Mary Antony led the Bishop through the rose-arch; and, casting a furtive glance at his face from behind the curtain of her veil, ventured to hope there was naught afoot which could bring trouble or care to the Reverend Mother.

Mary Antony was trotting beside the Bishop, down the long walk between the yew hedges, when she gave vent to this anxious question.

At once the Bishop slackened speed.

"Not so fast, Sister Antony," he said. "I pray you to remember mine age, and to moderate your pace. Why should you expect trouble or anxiety for the Reverend Mother?"

"Nay," said Mary Antony, "I expect naught; I saw naught; I heard naught! 'Twas all mine own mistake, counting with my peas. I told the Reverend Mother so, and set her mind at rest by carrying up _six_ peas, saying that I had found _six_ and not _five_ in my wallet."

"Let us pause," said the Bishop, "and look at this lily. How lovely are its petals. How tall and white it shews against the hedge. Why did you need to set the Reverend Mother's mind at rest, Sister Antony, by carrying up six peas?"

"Because," said the old lay-sister, "when I had counted as they returned, the twenty holy ladies who had gone to Vespers, yet another passed making twenty-one. Upon which I ran and reported to the Reverend Mother, saying in my folly, that I feared the twenty-first was Sister Agatha, returned to walk amongst the Living, she being over fifty years numbered with the Dead. Yet many a time, just before dawn, have I heard her rapping on the cloister door; aye, many a time--tap! tap! tap! But what good would there