The Forest Lovers Part 31

Isoult, half-dead with fright, once more obeyed. The knocking continued till the door was opened.

"Who are you, in the name of Jesus?" said the woman, trembling.

"Jesus be my witness, I come in His name. I am Brother Bonaccord,"

said a man without.

"Save you, father," the woman replied, "but you cannot come in this night. There's a naked maid in the room."

Isoult's plight was pitiable. She could do absolutely nothing but stay where she was. She dared not so much as cry out.

"If she is a maid, it is very well," said Brother Bonaccord; "but I am quite sure she is not."

"Heyday, what is this?" cried Falve's mother, highly scandalized.

"Listen to me, Dame Ursula," the friar went on with a wagging finger.

"Your son came with gossip of a marriage he was to make with a certain Isoult--"

"'Tis so, 'tis so, indeed, father. Isoult la Desirous is her name--a most sweet maid."

"No maiden at all, good woman, but a wife of my own making."

"Ah, joys of Mary, what is this?"

"Ask her, mistress, ask her."

"I shall ask her, never you fear. Stay you there, father, for your life."

"Trust me, ma'am."

Dame Ursula went straight up to the bed and whipped off the blankets.

There cowered the girl.

"Tell me the sober truth by all the pains of _Dies Irae_,"

whispered her hostess. "Are you a maiden or none?"

It was a shrewd torment that, double-forked. To deny was infamy, to affirm ruin. However, there was no escape from it: Isoult had never been a learned liar.

"I am a maid, ma'am," she said in a whisper.

"Cover yourself warm, my lamb, I'll twist him," said the delighted mother. She went quickly to the door.

"May our lord the holy Pope of Rome find you mercy, father," she vowed, "but you'll find none here. The girl has testified against you.

Now will you marry 'em?"

"That I will not, by our Lord," replied the friar.

"There's infamy abroad, and I'll leave it, for it's none of my making.

I wish you good-night, mistress. Bid your son to the Black Brothers.

Saint Dominic may deal with him. Saint Francis was a clean man, and so must we be clean."

"Then get ye clean tongues lest ye lick others foul, ye brown viper,"

screamed Mrs. Ursula, as he splashed down the kennel.

Isoult was desperate; but luck pointed her one road yet. You will remember the trinkets round her neck: Prosper's ring was one, the other was that which old Mald had felt for and found safe in her bosom on her wedding night. When, therefore, Mrs. Ursula came bridling into the light full of her recent victory, she saw the girl before her trembling, and holding out a gold chain at a stretch.

"Lord's name, child, you'll catch your death," cried she. "Slip on your night-gown and into the bed."

"Trust her now, trust her now," went Isoult's wild heart. "Not yet, mother," said she, "you must hear me now."

Ursula dropped into a chair. Isoult knelt before her and put the ring in her old hand.

"Mother, look at this ring," she began, out of breath already, "and look at me, and then let me go. For with this ring I was wed a year ago to a certain lord whom I love dearly, and to whom I have never yet come as a wife. So what I told you was true, and what the Grey Friar told you was true also, when he said that I was a wife of his wedding.

He wed me to my lord sure and fast to save me from a hanging; but not for love of me was I taken by my husband, and not for desire of his to mate his soul to mine. But for love of the love I bore him I dared not let him come, even when he would have come. We have been a year wedded, and many days and nights we have wandered the forest and dwelt together here and there, until now by some fate we are put apart. But I know we shall come together again, and he whom I love so bitterly shall set the ring in its place again where he first put it, and himself lie where now it lies. And so the wound and the pain I have shall be at last a.s.suaged, and, Love, who had struck me so deep, shall crown me."

So said Isoult, kneeling and crying. Whatever else she may have touched in her who listened, she touched her curiosity. The old woman dropped the ring to look at the girl. True enough, below her left breast there was a small red wound, and upon it a drop of fresh blood.

Mrs. Ursula took the wet face between her two chapped hands and laughed at it, not unkindly.

"My bonny la.s.s," said she, "if this be all thou hast to tell me it will not stay my son Falve. Here in this forest we think little of the giving of rings, but much of what should follow it. But thy wedding stopped at the ringing, from what I can learn. That is no wedding at all. Doubt not this knight of thine will never return; they never do return, my la.s.sie. Neither doubt but that Falve will wed thee faster than any ring can do. And as for thy scratch and crying heart, my child, trust Falve again to stanch the one and still the other. For that is a man's way. And now get into bed, child; it grows late."

There was nothing for it but to obey. Her game had been played and had failed. She got into bed and Ursula followed.

Then as she lay there quaking, crying quietly to herself, her heart's message went on that bid her trust. Trust! What could she trust? The thought shaped itself and grew clearer every minute; the answer pealed in her brain. The token! she recalled her mother's words, the only words she had spoken on her marriage night. "It shall not fail thee to whomsoever thou shalt show it."

"Help, Saint Isidore!" she breathed, and sat up in the bed.

This made the old woman very cross.

"Drat the girl," she muttered, "why don't she sleep while she can?"

Isoult leaned over her and put the token in her hand. "Look also at this token, mother, before we sleep," she said.

Mrs. Ursula, grumbling and only half awake, took the thing in one hand and hoisted herself with the other. She sat up, peered at it in the light of the cresset, dropped it to rub her eyes, fumbled for it again, and peered again; she whispered prayers to herself and adjurations, called on Christ and Christ's mother, vehemently crossed herself many times, scrambled out of bed, and plumped down beside it on her two knees.

"Mild Mary," she quavered, "mild Mary, that is enough! That I should live to see this day. Oh, saints in glory! Let us look at it again."

Isoult drooped over the edge of the bed; Ursula looked and was astounded, she wondered and prayed, she laughed and cried. Isoult grew frightened.

"Wed her!" cried the old dame in ecstasy. "Wed the Queen of Sheba next!" Then she grew mighty serious. She got up and dropped a curtesy.

"It is enough, Princess. He dare not look at you again. At dawn you shall leave this place. Now sleep easy, for if I hurt a hair of your head I might never hope for heaven's gate."

She made the girl sleep alone.

"This is my proper station before you, madam," said she, and lay down on the floor at the foot of the bed.

It was no dream. In the morning she was up before the light. Isoult found a bath prepared, and in her gaoler of over-night a dresser who was as brisk as a bee and as humble as a spaniel.