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

which His Holiness sent thee, being accomplished----"

"Accomplished, Hugh?"

The Knight smiled, wearily. "I quote the Bishop, Mora. He will explain that he now reinstates thee as Prioress of the Order. The entire Community will, he says, rejoice; and he himself will be ever at hand to make sure that all is right for thee."

"These plans are well and carefully laid, Hugh."

"They who love thee have seen to that, Mora."

"Who will ride with me from here to Worcester?"

"Martin Goodfellow, and a little band of thine own people. A swifter messenger will go before to warn the Bishop of thy coming."

"And what of thee?" she asked.

"Of me?" repeated the Knight, as if at first the words conveyed to him no meaning. "Oh, I shall go forth, seeking a worthy cause for which to fight; praying God I may soon be counted worthy to fall in battle."

She pressed her clasped hands there where his face had rested.

"And if I find I cannot go back, Hugh? If I decide to stay?"

He swung round and looked at her.

"Mora, is there hope? The Bishop said there was none."

"Hugh," she made answer slowly, speaking with much earnestness, "shall I not be given a true vision to guide me in this perplexity?"

"Our Lady grant it," he said. "If you decide to stay, one word will bring me back. If not, Mora--this is our final parting."

He took a step toward her.

She covered her face with her hands.

In a moment his arms would be round her. She could not live through a third of those farewell kisses. She had not yet faced out the second question. But--vision or no vision--if he touched her now, she would yield.

"Go!" she whispered. "Ah, for pity's sake, go! The heart of a nun might endure even this. But I ask thy mercy for the heart of a woman!"

She heard the sob in his throat, as he knelt and lifted the hem of her robe to his lips.

Then his step across the floor.

Then the ring of horses' hoofs upon the paving stones.

She was trembling from head to foot, yet she rose and went to the window overlooking the courtyard.

Mark was shutting the gates. Beaumont held a neglected stirrup cup, and laughed as he drained it himself. Zachary, stout and pompous, was mounting the steps.

Hugh, her husband--Hugh, faithful beyond belief--Hugh, her dear Knight of the Silver Shield--had ridden off alone, to the home to which he so greatly longed to take her; alone, with his hopeless love, his hungry heart, and his untarnished honour.

Turning from the window she gathered up the habit of her Order and, clasping her cross of office, mounted to her bedchamber, there to face out in solitude the hard question of the second issue.


CHAPTER LVI


THE TRUE VISION

To her bedchamber went Mora--she who had been Prioress of the White Ladies--bearing in her arms the full robes of her Order, and in her hand the jewelled cross of her high office. She went, expecting to spend hours in doubt and prayer and question before the shrine of the Virgin. But, as she pushed open the door and entered the sunlit chamber, on the very threshold she was met by a flash of inward illumination. Surely every question had already been answered; the second issue had been decided, while the first was yet wholly uncertain.

She had said she must have a divine vision. Had she not this very day been granted a two-fold vision, both human and divine; the Divine, stooping in unspeakable tenderness and comprehension to the human; the Human, upborne on the mighty pinions of pure love and stainless honour in a self-sacrifice which lifted it to the Divine?

In the lonely chapel on the mountain, she had seen her Lord. Not as the Babe, heralded by angels, worshipped by Eastern shepherds, adored by Gentile kings, throned on His Mother's knee, wise-eyed and God-like, stretching omnipotent baby hands toward this mysterious homage which was His due; accepting, with baby omniscience, the gold, the frankincense, the myrrh, which typified His mission; nor as the Divine Redeemer nailed helpless to the cross of shame; dead, that the world might live. These had been the visions of her cloistered years.

But in the chapel on the mountain she had seen Him as the human Jesus, tempted in all points like as we are, His only visible halo the "yet without sin," which set upon His brow in youth and manhood the divine seal of perfect purity, and in His eyes the clear shining of uninterrupted intercourse with Heaven.

As she had left the chapel, turning from the sculptured figure which had helped her to this realisation, she had become wondrously aware of the Unseen Presence of the Christ, close beside her. "As seeing Him Who is invisible" she had come down from the mount, conscious that He went on before. She seemed to be following those blessed footsteps over the heather of her native hills, even as the disciples of old followed them through the cornfields of Judea, and over the grassy slopes of Galilee. Yet conscious also that He moved beside her, with hand outstretched in case her spirit tripped; and that, should a hidden foe fling shafts from an ambush in the rear, even there that Unseen Presence would be behind her as a shield. "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

Strong in this most human vision of the Divine, she had come down from the Holy Mount, prepared to face the dumb demon she dreaded, the silent acquiescence in deception, which threatened to tear her happiness, bruise her spirit, and cast into the fire and into the waters to destroy them, those treasures which her heart had lately learned to hold so dear.

Prepared for this, she came; and lo, Heaven granted her the second vision. She saw deep into the heart of a true man's faithfulness; an example of chivalry, of profound reverence for holy things, which shamed her doubts of him; a self-sacrifice which lifted the great human love, to which she, in her cloistered sanctity, had pictured herself as stooping, far above her, to the ideal of the divine. Was not this indeed a Vision of Truth?

Crossing the room, Mora laid the robes she carried upon the couch. While mounting the stairs she had planned, in the secret of her own chamber, to clothe herself in them once again, to hang her jewelled cross about her neck, and thus--once more Prioress of the White Ladies--to kneel at our Lady's shrine, and implore guidance in this final decision. But now, she laid them gently down upon the bed.

She could not stand fast in this new liberty, with the heavy folds of that white habit entangling her feet in a yoke of bondage.

The heart, filled with a love so full of glowing tenderness for her Knight of the Silver Shield proved worthy, could not beat beneath a scapulary. Nor could her cross of office lie where his dear head had rested.

She stood before the shrine. The Madonna looked gravely upon her. The holy Babe gazed with omniscient eyes, holding forth tiny hands of omnipotence.

Even so had they looked in her hour of joy, when she had kneeled in a transport of thanksgiving.

Even so had they looked in her hour of anguish, when she had poured out her despair at having been twice deceived.

Yet help had not come, until she had lifted her eyes unto the hills.

She turned from the shrine, went swiftly to the open casement, and stood looking over the green tree tops, to the heavenly blue beyond, flecked by swift moving clouds.

She, who had now learned to "look . . . at the things that are not seen," could not find help through gazing on carven images.

Thoughts of our Lady seemed more living and vital while she kept her eyes upon the fleecy whiteness of those tiny clouds, or watched a flight of mountain birds, silver-winged in the sunshine.

What was the one command recorded as having been given, by the blessed Mother of our Lord, to men? "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it." And what was His last injunction to His Church on earth? "Go ye into all the world and preach glad tidings to every creature. . . . And lo, I am with you always."

Mora could not but know that she had come forth into her world bringing the glad tidings of love requited, of comfort, and of home.

By virtue of this promise the feet of the risen Christ would move beside her "all the days."

It seemed to her, that if she went back now into her Convent cell, she would nail those blessed feet to the wood again. In slaying this new life within herself, she would lose forever the sense of living companionship, retaining only the religion of the Crucifix. Enough, perhaps, for the cloistered life. But this life more abundant, demanded that grace should yet more abound.

A great apostolic injunction sounded, like a clarion call, from the stored chancel of her memory. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him."

She flung wide her arms. A sense of all-pervading liberty, a complete freedom from all bondage of spirit, soul, or body, leapt up responsive to the call.

"I will!" she said. "Without any further fear or faltering, I will!"

She passed to the couch, folded the robes she had worn so long, and laid them away in an empty chest.

This done, she took her cross of office, and went down to the terrace. Her one thought was to reach Hugh with as little delay as possible. She could not leave that noble heart in suspense, a moment longer than she need.

The sun was still high in the heavens. By the short way through the woods, she could reach the castle long before sunset.

She owed Hugh much. Yet there was another to whom she also owed a debt; how much she owed to him, this day's new light had shewn her. She would go forward to her joy with a freer heart if she gave herself time to discharge, by acknowledgment and thanks, the great debt she owed to her old and faithful friend, Symon, Bishop of Worcester.

She sent for her steward.

"Zachary," she said, "Sir Hugh has ridden on before. I follow by the short way through the forest, and shall not return to-night. Bid them saddle my white palfrey, Icon. I shall be ready to start within an hour. But first I must despatch to Worcester, a packet of importance. Bid two of the men, who rode with us from Worcester, prepare to mount and return thither. If they start in an hour's time, they can be well on their way, and make a safe lodging, before nightfall."

She passed into the library, laid the cross before her on the table, and began her letter to the Bishop.

Straight from her hand to his, that letter went; straight from her heart to his, that letter spoke; and Symon's comfort in it, lies