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

waited.

"Mount me," she said to Martin Goodfellow, as she passed him; and it was Martin who swung her into the saddle.

Then she trembled at what she had done, in yielding to this impulse which made her shrink from Hugh.

As the black mane of his horse drew level with Icon's head, and side by side they rode out from the courtyard, she feared a thunder-cloud on the Knight's brow, and a sullen silence, as the best she could expect. But calm and cheerful, his voice fell on her ear; and glancing at him furtively, she still saw on his face that light which dazzled her heart. Yet no word did he speak which all might not have heard, and not once did he lay his hand on hers. Each time they dismounted, she saw him sign to Martin Goodfellow, and it was Martin who helped her to alight.

All this, in rapid retrospect, passed through Mora's mind as she stood alone beside her splendid Knight, miserably conscious that she had shivered, and that he knew it; and fearful lest he divined the shrinking of her soul away from him, away from love, away from all for which love stood. Alas, alas! Why did this man--this most human, ardent, loving man--hang all his hopes of happiness upon the heart of a nun? Would it be possible that he should understand, that eight years of cloistered life cannot be renounced in a day?

Mora looked at him again.

The stern profile might well be about to say: "Shudder again, and I will do to thee that which shall give thee cause to shudder indeed!"

Yet, at that moment he spoke, and his voice was infinitely gentle.

"Yonder rides a true friend," he said. "One who has learned love's deepest lesson."

"What is love's deepest lesson?" she asked.

He turned and looked at her, and the fire of his dark eyes was drowned in tenderness.

"That true love means self-sacrifice," he said. "Come, my beloved. Let us walk in the gardens, where we can talk at ease of our plans for the days to come."


CHAPTER XL


THE HEART OF A NUN

Hugh and Mora passed together through the great hall, along the armoury, down the winding stair and so out into the gardens.

The Knight led the way across the lawn and through the rose garden, toward the yew hedge and the bowling-green.

Old Debbie, looking from her casement, thought them beautiful beyond words as she watched them cross the lawn--she in white and gold, he in white and silver; his dark head towering above her fair one, though she was uncommon tall. And, falling upon her knees, old Debbie prayed to the Angel Gabriel that she might live to hold in her arms, and rock to sleep upon her bosom, sweet babes, both fair and dark: "Fair little maids," she said, "and fine, dark boys," explaining to Gabriel that which she thought would be most fit.

Meanwhile Hugh and Mora, walking a yard apart--all unconscious of these family plans, being so anxiously made for them at an upper casement--bent their tall heads and passed under the arch in the yew hedge, crossed the bowling-green, and entered the arbour of the golden roses.

Hugh led the way; yet Mora gladly followed. The Bishop's presence seemed to abide here, in comfort and protection.

All signs of the early repast were gone from the rustic table.

Mora took her seat there where in the early morning she had sat; while Hugh, not knowing he did so, passed into the Bishop's place.

The sun shone through the golden roses, hanging in clusters over the entrance.

The sense of the Bishop's presence so strongly pervaded the place, that almost at once Mora felt constrained to speak of him.

"Hugh," she said, "very early this morning, long before you were awake, the Bishop and I broke our fast, in this arbour, together."

The Knight smiled.

"I knew that," he said. "In his own characteristic way the Bishop told it me. 'My son,' he said, 'you have reversed the sacred parable. In your case it was the bride-groom who, this morning, slumbered and slept.' 'True, my lord,' said I. 'But there were no foolish virgins about.' 'Nay, verily!' replied the Bishop. 'The two virgins awake at that hour were pre-eminently wise: the one, making as the sun rose most golden pats of butter and crusty rolls; the other, rising early to partake of them with appetite. Truly there were no foolish virgins about. There was but one foolish prelate.'"

She, who so lately had been Prioress of the White Ladies, flushed with indignation at the words.

"Wherefore said he so?" she inquired, severely. "He, who is always wiser than the wisest."

Hugh noted the heightened colour and the ready protest.

"Perhaps," he suggested, speaking slowly, as if choosing his words with care, "the Bishop's head, being so wise, revealed to him, in himself, a certain foolishness of heart."

Mora struck the table with her hand.

"Nay then, verily!" she cried. "Head and heart alike are wise; and--unlike other men--the Bishop's head rules his heart."

"And a most noble heart,", the Knight said, with calmness; neither wincing at the blow upon the table, nor at the "unlike other men," flung out in challenge.

Then, folding his arms upon the table, and looking searchingly into the face of his bride: "Tell me," he said, "during all these years, has this friendship with Symon of Worcester meant much to thee?"

Something in his tone arrested Mora. She answered, with an equal earnestness: "Yes, Hugh. It has done more for me than can well be told. It has kept living and growing in me much that would otherwise have been stunted or dead; an ever fresh flow of thought, where, but for him, would have been a stagnant pool. My sad heart might have grown bitter, my nature too austere, particularly when advancement to high office brought with it an inevitable loneliness, had it not been for the interest and charm of his visits and missives; his constant gifts and kindness. There is about him a light-hearted gaiety, a whimsical humour, a joy in life, which cannot fail to wake responsive gladness in any heart with which he comes in contact. And mingled with his shrewd wisdom, his wide knowledge of men and matters, there is ever a tender charity, which thinks no evil, always believing in good and hoping for the best; a love which never fails; a kindness which makes one ashamed of harbouring hard or revengeful thoughts."

Hugh made no reply. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the beautiful face before him, now glowing with enthusiasm. He waited for something more. And presently it came.

"Also," said Mora, slowly: "a very precious memory of my early days at Court, when as a young maiden I attended on the Queen, was kept alive by a remarkable likeness in the Bishop to one who was, as I learned this morning for the first time, actually near of kin to him. Do you remember, Hugh, long years ago, that I spoke to you of Father Gervaise?"

"I do remember," said the Knight.

She leaned her elbows on the table, framed her face in her hands, and looked straight into his eyes.

"Father Gervaise was more to me than I then told you, Hugh."

"What was he to thee, Mora?"

"He was the Ideal of my girlhood. For a time, I thought of him by day, I dreamed of him by night. No word of his have I ever forgotten. Many of his sayings and precepts have influenced, and still deeply influence, my whole life. In fact, Hugh, I loved Father Gervaise; not as a woman loves a man--ah, no! But, rather, as a nun loves her Lord."

"I see," said the Knight. "But you were not then a nun, Mora."

"No, I was not then a nun. But I have been a nun since then; and that is how I can best describe my love for the Queen's Confessor."

"Long after," said the Knight, "you were betrothed to me?"

"Yes, Hugh."

"How did you love me, Mora?"

Across the rustic table they looked full into each other's eyes. Tragedy, stalking around that rose-covered arbour, drew very near, and they knew it. Almost, his grim shadow came between them and the sunshine.

Then the Knight smiled; and with that smile rushed back the flood-tide of remembrance; remembrance of all which their young love had meant, of the sweet promise it had held.

His eyes still holding hers, she smiled also.

The golden roses clustering in the entrance swayed and nodded in the sunlight, as a gently rising breeze fanned them to and fro.

"Dear Knight," she said, softly, a wistful tenderness in her voice, "I suppose I loved you, as a girl loves the man who has won her."

"Mora," said Hugh, "I have something to tell thee."

"I listen," she said.

"My wife--so wholly, so completely, do I love thee, that I would not consciously keep anything from thee. So deeply do I love thee, that I would sooner any wrong or sin of mine were known to thee and by thee forgiven, than that thou shouldest think me one whit better than I am."

He paused.

Her eyes were tender and compassionate. Often she had listened, with a patient heart of charity, to the tedious, morbid, self-centred confessions of kneeling nuns, who watched with anxious eyes for the sign which would mean that they might clutch at the hem of her robe and press it to their lips in token that they were forgiven.

But she had had no experience of the sins of men. What had the "splendid Knight" upon his conscience, which must now be told her, in this sunny arbour, on the morning of their bridal day?

Her heart throbbed painfully. Alas, it was still the heart of a nun. It would not be controlled. Must she hear wild tales of wickedness and shame, of which she would but partly understand the meaning?

Oh, for the calm of the Cloister! Oh, for the sheltered purity of her quiet cell!

Yet his eyes, still meeting hers, were clear and fearless.

"I listen," she said.

"Mora, not long ago a wondrous tale was told me of a man's great love for thee--a man, nobler than I, in that he mastered all selfish desires; a love higher than mine, in that it put thy welfare, in all things, first. Hearing this tale, I failed both myself and thee, for I said: 'I pray heaven that, if she come to me, she may never know that she once won the love of so greatly better a man than I.' But, since I clasped thy hand in mine, and the Bishop, laying his on either side, gave thee to be my wife, I have known there would be no peace for me if I feared to trust thee with this knowledge, because that the man who loved thee was a better man than the man who, by God's mercy and our Lady's grace, has won thee."

As the Knight spoke thus, the grey eyes fixed on his face grew wide with wonder; soft, with a great compunction; yet, at