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

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Years seemed to roll from her. She felt herself a child again. She longed for her mother's understanding tenderness. Failing that, she turned to the sweet Mother of God.

The image before which she knelt, shewed our Lady standing, tall and fair and gracious, the Infant Saviour, seated upon her left hand, her right hand holding Him leaning against her, His baby arms outstretched. Neither the Babe nor His Mother smiled. Each looked grave and somewhat sad.

"Home," whispered Mora. "Blessed Virgin I thank thee for sending me home."

"Nay," answered a voice within her. "I sent thee not home. I gave thee to him to whom thou didst belong. He hath brought thee home. What said the vision? 'Take her. She is thine own. I have but kept her for thee.'"

Yet Hugh knew naught of this gracious message--knew naught of the vision which had given her to him. Until to-night she had felt it impossible to tell him of it. Now she longed that he should share with her the wonder.

She sought her couch, but sleep would not come. The moonlight was too bright; the room too sweetly familiar. Moreover it seemed but yesterday that she had parted from Hugh, in such an ecstasy of love and sorrow, up on the battlements.

A great desire seized her to mount to those battlements, and to stand again just where she had stood when she bade him farewell.

She rose.

Among the garments put ready for her use, chanced to be the robe of sapphire velvet which she had worn on that night.

She put it on; with jewels at her breast and girdle. Then, with the mantle of ermine falling from her shoulders, and her beautiful hair covering her as a veil, she left her chamber, passed softly along the passage, found the winding stair, and mounted to the ramparts.

As she stepped out from the turret stairway, she exclaimed at the sublime beauty of the scene before her; the sleeping world at midnight, bathed in the silvery light of the moon; the shadows of the firs, lying like black bars across the road to the Castle gate.

"There I watched him ride away," she said, with a sweep of her arm toward the road, "watched, until the dark woods swallowed him. And here"--with a sweep toward the turret--"here, we parted."

She turned; then caught her breath.

Leaning against the wall with folded arms, stood Hugh.


CHAPTER XLIV


"I LOVE THEE"

Mora stood, for some moments, speechless; and Hugh did not stir. They faced one another, in the weird, white light.

At last: "Did you make me come?" she whispered.

"Nay, my beloved," he answered at once; "unless constant thought of thee, could bring thee to me. I pictured thee peacefully sleeping."

"I could not sleep," she said. "It seemed to me our Lady was not pleased, because, dear Knight, I have failed, in all these days, to tell you of her wondrous and especial grace which sent me to you."

"I have wondered," said the Knight; "but I knew there would come a time when I should hear what caused thy mind to change. That it was a thing of much import, I felt sure. The Bishop counselled me to give up hope. But I had besought our Lady to send thee to me, and I could not lose my trust in prayer."

"It was indeed our blessed Lady who sent me," said Mora, very softly. "Hugh, dare I stay and tell you the whole story, here and now? What if we are discovered, alone upon the ramparts, at this hour of the night?"

Hugh could not forbear a smile.

"Dear Heart," he said, "we shall not be discovered. And, if we were, methinks we have the right to be together, on the ramparts, or off them, at any hour of the day or night."

A low wooden seat ran along beneath the parapet.

Mora sat down and motioned the Knight to a place beside her.

"Sit here, Hugh. Then we can talk low."

"I listen better standing," said the Knight; but he came near, put one foot on the seat, leaned his elbow on his knee, his chin in his hand, and stood looking down upon her.

"Hugh," she said, "I withstood your pleadings; I withstood the Bishop's arguments; I withstood the yearnings of my own poor heart. I tore up the Pope's mandate, and set my foot upon it. I said that nothing could induce me to break my vows, unless our Lady herself gave me a clear sign that my highest duty was to you, thus absolving me from my vows, and making it evident that God's will for me was that I should leave the Cloister, and keep my early troth to you."

"And gave our Lady such a sign?" asked the Knight, his dark eyes fixed on Mora's face.

She lifted it, white and lovely; radiant in the moonlight.

"Better than a sign," she said. "Our Lady vouchsafed a wondrous vision, in which her own voice was heard, giving command and consent."

The Knight, crossing himself, dropped upon his knees, lifting his eyes heavenward in fervent praise and adoration. He raised to his lips a gold medallion, which he wore around his neck, containing a picture of the Virgin, and kissed it devoutly; then overcome by emotion, he covered his face with his hands and knelt with bowed head, reciting in a low voice, the _Salve Regina_.

Mora watched him, with deep gladness of heart. This fervent joy and devout thanksgiving differed so greatly from the half-incredulous, whimsically amused, mental attitude with which Symon of Worcester had received her recital of the miracle. Hugh's reverent adoration filled her with happiness.

Presently he rose and stood beside her again, expectant, eager.

"Tell me more; nay, tell me all," he said.

"The vision," began Mora, "was given to the old lay-sister, Mary Antony."

"Mary Antony?" queried Hugh, with knitted brow. "'The old lay-sister, Mary Antony'? Why do I know that name? I seem to remember that the Bishop spoke of her, as we walked together in the Palace garden, the day following the arrival of the messenger from Rome. Methinks the Bishop said that she alone knew of my intrusion into the Nunnery; but that she, being faithful, could be trusted."

"Nay, Hugh," answered Mora, "you mistake. It was I who told you so, even before I knew you were the intruder, while yet addressing you as Sister Seraphine's 'Cousin Wilfred.' I said that you had been thwarted in your purpose by the faithfulness of the old lay-sister, Mary Antony, who never fails to count the White Ladies, as they go, and as they return, and who had reported to me that one more had returned than went. Afterward I was greatly perplexed as to what explanation I should make to Mary Antony; when, to my relief, she came and confessed that hers was the mistake, she having counted wrongly. Glad indeed was I to let it rest at that; so neither she, nor any in the Convent, knew aught of your entrance there or your visit to my cell. The Bishop, you, and I, alone know of it."

"Then I mistake," said the Knight. "But I felt certain I had heard the name, and that the owner thereof had some knowledge of my movements. Now, I pray thee, dear Heart, tell me all."

So sitting there on the ramparts of her old home, the stillness of the fragrant summer night all around, Mora told from the beginning the wondrous history of the trance of Mary Antony, and the blessed vision then vouchsafed to her.

The Knight listened with glowing eyes. Once he interrupted to exclaim: "Oh, true! Most true! More true than thou canst know. Left alone in thy cell, I kneeled to our Lady, saying those very words: 'Mother of God, send her to me! Take pity on a hungry heart, a lonely home, a desolate hearth, and send her to me.' I was alone. Only our Lady whom I besought, heard those words pass my lips."

Again Hugh kneeled, kissed the medallion, and lifted to heaven eyes luminous with awe and worship.

Continuing, Mora told him all, even to each detail of her long night vigil and her prayer for a sign which should be given direct to herself, so soon granted by the arrival and flight of the robin. But this failed to impress Hugh, wholly absorbed in the vision, and unable to see where any element of hesitation or of uncertainty could come in. Hearing it from Mora, he was spared the quaint turn which was bound to be given to any recital, however sacred, heard direct from old Mary Antony.

The Knight was a Crusader. Many a fight he had fought for that cause representing the highest of Christian ideals. Also, he had been a pilgrim, and had visited innumerable holy shrines. For years, his soul had been steeped in religion, in that Land where true religion had its birth, and all within him, which was strongest and most manly, had responded with a simplicity of faith, yet with a depth of ardent devotion, which made his religion the most vital part of himself. This it was which had given him a noble fortitude in bearing his sorrow. This it was which now gave him a noble exultation in accepting his great happiness. It filled him with rapture, that his wife should have been given to him in direct response to his own earnest petition.

When at length Mora stood up, stretching her arms above her head and straightening her supple limbs:

"My beloved," he said, "if the vision had not been given, wouldst thou not have come to me? Should I have had to ride away from Worcester alone?"

Standing beside him, she answered, tenderly:

"Dear Hugh, my most faithful and loyal Knight, being here--and oh so glad to be here--how can I say it? Yet I must answer truly. But for the vision, I should not have come. I could not have broken my vows. No blessing would have followed had I come to you, trailing broken vows, like chains behind me. But our Lady herself set me free and bid me go. Therefore I came to you; and therefore am I here."

"Tell me again the words our Lady said, when she put thy hand in mine."

"Our Lady said: 'Take her. She hath been ever thine. I have but kept her for thee.'"

Then she paled, her heart began to beat fast, and the colour came and went in her cheeks; for he had come very near, and she could hear the sharp catch of his breath.

"Mora, my beloved," he said, "every fibre of my being cries out for thee. Yet I want thy happiness before my own; and, above and beyond all else, I want the Madonna in my home. Even at our Lady's bidding I cannot take thee. Not until thine own sweet lips shall say: 'Take me! I have been ever thine.'"

She lifted her eyes to his. In the moonlight, her face seemed almost unearthly, in its pure loveliness; and, as on that night so long