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

morning breeze blowing about her, the sun mounting triumphant in the heavens "as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber," and all around the scent of heather, the hum of bees, the joyful trill of the soaring lark; her own body bounding with life after the swift climb--it seemed to Mora impossible that Hugh should withstand the temptation to hold to his happiness, at all costs. And how could a saintly Hermit judge him as mercifully as she--the woman who loved him--knew that he should be judged?

She felt thankful for the good man's absence, yet baffled in her need for help.

Looking back toward the humble dwelling, she perceived a rough device of carved lettering on a beam over the doorway. She made out Latin words, and going nearer she, who for years had worked so continuously at copying and translating, read them without difficulty.

"WITH HIM, IN THE HOLY MOUNT," was inscribed across the doorway of the Hermit's dwelling.

Mora repeated the words, and again repeated them; and, as she did so there stole over her the sense of an Unseen Presence in this solitude.

"With Him, in the Holy Mount."

She turned to the chapel. Over that doorway also were carven letters. Moving closer, she looked up and read them.

"AND WHEN THEY HAD LIFTED UP THEIR EYES, THEY SAW NO MAN, SAVE JESUS ONLY."

Mora opened the door and entered the tiny chapel. At first, coming in from the outer brightness it seemed dark; but she had left the door standing wide, and light poured in behind her.

Then she lifted up her eyes and saw; and seeing, understood the meaning of the legend above the entrance.

In that little chapel was one Figure, and one Figure only. No pictured saints were there. No image of our Lady. No crucifix hung on the wall.

But, in a niche above the altar, stood a wondrous figure of the Christ; not dying, not dead; not glorified and ascending; but the Christ as very man, walking the earth in human form, yet calmly, unmistakably, triumphantly Divine. The marble form was carved by the same hand as the Madonna which the Bishop had brought from Rome, and placed in Mora's cell at the Convent. It had been his gift to his old friend the Hermit. At first sight of it, Mora remembered hearing it described by the Bishop himself. Then the beauty of the sculpture took hold upon her, and she forgot all else.

It lived! The face wore a look of searching tenderness; on the lips, a smile of loving comprehension; in the out-stretched hands, an attitude of infinite compassion.

Mora fell upon her knees. Instinctively she recalled the earnest injunction of Father Gervaise to his penitents that, when kneeling before the crucifix, they should repeat: "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." And, strangely enough, there came back with this the remembrance of the wild voice of Mary Seraphine, shrieking, when told to contemplate the dying Redeemer: "I want life--not death!"

Here was Life indeed! Here was the Saviour of the world, in mortal guise, the Word made manifest.

Mora lifted her eyes and read the words, illumined in letters of gold around the arch of the niche, gleaming in the sunlight above the patient head of the Man Divine.

"IN ALL POINTS TEMPTED LIKE AS WE ARE, YET WITHOUT SIN."

And higher still, above the arch:

"A GREAT HIGH PRIEST. . . . PASSED INTO THE HEAVENS."

In the silence and stillness of that utter solitude, she who had so lately been Prioress of the White Ladies kneeled and worshipped.

The Unseen Presence drew nearer.

She closed her eyes to the sculptured form.

The touch of her Lord was upon her heart.

She had prayed in her cell that His pierced feet nailed to the wood might become as dear to her as the Baby feet on the Virgin Mother's knees. In her anguish of cloistered sorrow, that prayer had been granted.

But out in the world of living men and things, she needed more. She needed Feet that walked and moved, passed in and out of house and home; paused by the hearth; went to the wedding feast; moved to the fresh closed grave; Feet that had sampled the dust of life's highway; Feet that had trod rough places, yet never tripped nor stumbled.

"Tempted in all points." . . . Then here was One Who could understand Hugh's hard temptation; Who could pity, if Hugh fell. Here was One Who would comprehend the breaking of her poor human heart if, loving Hugh as she now loved, she yet must leave him.

"A great High Priest." . . . What need of any other priest, while "with Him in the Holy Mount"? Passed into the heavens, yet ever living to make intercession for us.

Deep peace stole into her heart, as she knelt in absorbed communion in this sacred place, where, for the first time, in her religious life, she had found herself with "Jesus only."

"Ah, blessed Lord!" she cried at length, "Thou Who knowest the heart of a man, and canst divine the heart of a woman, grant unto me this day a true vision; a vision which shall make clear to me, without any possibility of doubt, what is Thy will for me."


CHAPTER LIV


THE UNSEEN PRESENCE

The world was a new and a wonderful world as, leaving the chapel, Mora turned her steps homeward. She had been wont to regard temptation itself as sinful, but now this sacred fact "in all points tempted like as we are" seemed to sanctify the state of being tempted, providing she could add the three triumphant words: "Yet without sin."

As she walked, with springy step, down the grassy paths among the heather, the Unseen Presence moved beside her.

It seemed strange that she should have found in the world this sweet secret of the Perpetual Presence, which had evaded her in the Nunnery. Often when her duties had taken her elsewhere in the Convent, or during the walk through the underground way on the return from the Cathedral, or even when walking for refreshment in the Convent garden, she would yearn for the holy stillness of the chapel, or to be back in her cell that she might kneel at the shrine of the Virgin and there realise the adorable purity of our blessed Lady's heart; or, prostrating herself before the crucifix, gaze upon those pierced feet, then slowly lift her eyes to the other sacred wounds, and force her mind to realise and her cold heart to receive the mighty fact that the Divine Redeemer thus hung and suffered for her sins.

Transports of realisation had come to her in her cell, or when she kept vigil in the Convent chapel, or when from the height of the Cathedral clerestory she gazed down upon the High Altar, the lighted candles, the swinging censers, and heard the chanting of the monks, and the tinkle of the silver bell. But these transports had resulted from her own determination to realise and to respond. The mental effort over, they faded, and her heart had seemed colder than before, her spirit more dead, her mind more prone to apathy. The greater the effort to force herself to apprehend, the more complete had been the reaction of non-realisation.

But now, in this deep wonder of new experience, there was no effort. She had but waited with every inlet of her being open to receive. And now the power was a Real Presence within, revealing an equally Real Presence without. The Risen Christ moved beside her as she walked. Her eyes were no longer holden that she should not know Him, for the promised Presence of the _Paracletos_ filled her, unveiling her spiritual vision, whispering within her glowing heart; "It is the Lord!"

"Which Voice we heard," wrote Saint Peter, "when we were with Him in the Holy Mount." She, too, had first heard it there; but, as she descended, it was with her still. The songs of the birds, the rush of the stream, the breeze in the pines, the bee on the wing, all Nature seemed to say: "It is the Lord!"

Sorrow, suffering, disillusion might await her on the plain; but, with the Presence beside her, and the Voice within, she felt strong to face them, and to overcome.

Noon found her in her garden, calm and serene; yet wondering, with quickening pulses, whether at nightfall or even at sunset, Hugh would ride in; and what she must say if, giving some other reason for his journey to Worcester, he deceived her as others had deceived; failed her as others had failed.

And wondering thus, she rose and moved with slow step to the terrace.

For a while she stood pondering this hard question, her eyes lifted to the distant hills.

Then something impelled her to turn and glance into the banqueting hall, and there--on the spot where he had knelt that she might bless him at parting--stood Hugh, his arms folded, his eyes fixed upon her, waiting till she should see him.


CHAPTER LV


THE HEART OF A WOMAN

For a space, through the casement, they looked into one another's eyes; she, standing in the full glory of the summer sunshine, a radiant vision of glowing womanhood; he, in the shade of the banqueting-hall, gaunt and travel-stained, yet in his eyes the light of that love which never faileth. But, even as she looked, those dark eyes wavered, shifted, turned away, as if he could not bear any longer to gaze upon her in the sunlight.

An immense pity filled Mora's heart. She knew he was going to fail her; yet the pathos of that failure lay in the fact that it was the very force of his love which rendered the temptation so insuperable.

Swiftly she passed into the banqueting hall, went to him where he stood, put up her arms about his neck, and lifted her lips to his.

"I thank God, my beloved," she said, "that He hath brought thee in safety back to me."

Hugh's arms, flung around her, strained her to him. But he kept his head erect. The muscles of his neck were like iron bands under her fingers. She could see the cleft in his chin, the firm curve of his lips. His eyes were turned from her.

She longed to say: "Hugh, the Bishop's first letter, lost on its way, hath reached my hands. Already I know the true story of the vision."

Yet instead she clung to his neck, crying: "Kiss me, Hugh! Kiss me!"

She could not rob her man of his chance to be faithful. Also, if he were going to fail her, it were better he should fail and she know it, than that she should forever have the torment of questioning: "Had I not spoken, would he have kept silence?"

Yet, while he was still hers, his honour untarnished, she longed for the touch of his lips.

"Kiss me," she whispered again, not knowing how ten-fold more hard she thus made it for him.

But loosing his arms from around her, he took her face between his hands, looking long into her eyes, with such a yearning of hunger, grief, and regret, that her heart stood still. Then, just as, rendered dizzy by