The White Ladies of Worcester Part 71

"Then how came you to tell me, Hugh, that which might well imperil not only my peace but your own happiness?"

"Mora," said the Knight, "if I have done wrong, may our blessed Lady pardon me, and comfort you. But I could not take my happiness knowing that it came to me by reason of a deception practised upon you. Our love must have its roots in perfect truthfulness and trust. Also you and I had together accepted the vision as divine. I had kneeled in your sight and praised our blessed Lady for this especial grace vouchsafed on my behalf. But now, knowing it to have been a sacrilegious fraud, every time you spoke with joy of the special grace, every time you blessed our Lady for her loving-kindness, I, by my silence, giving mute a.s.sent, should have committed sacrilege afresh.

Aye, and in that wondrous moment which you promised should soon come, when you would have said: 'Take me! I have been ever thine. Our Lady hath kept me for thee!' mine honour would have been smirched forever had I, keeping silence, taken advantage of thy belief in words which that old nun had herself invented, and put into the mouth of the blessed Virgin. The Bishop held me selfish because I put mine honour before my need of thee. He said I saw naught but mine own proud face, in the bright mirror of my silver s.h.i.+eld. But"--the Knight held his right hand aloft, and spoke in solemn tones--"methinks I see there the face of G.o.d, or the nearest I know to His face; and, behind Him, I see thy face, mine own beloved. I needs must put this, which I owe to honour and to our mutual trust, before mine own content, and utter need of thee. I should be shamed, did I do otherwise, to call thee wife of mine, to think of thee as mistress of my home, and of my heart the Queen."

Mora's hand had sought the Bishop's letter; but now she let it lie concealed. She could not dim the n.o.ble triumph of that moment, by any revelation of her previous knowledge. Had Hugh failed, she must have produced the first letter. Hugh having proved faithful, it might well wait.

A long silence fell between them. Mora, fingering the cross, looked on it with unseeing eyes. To Hugh it seemed that this token of her high office was becoming to her a thing of first importance.

"The dress is also here," he said.

"What dress?" she questioned, starting.

He pointed to where he had laid it: her white habit, scapulary, wimple, veil and girdle; the dress of a Prioress of the Order of the White Ladies.

She turned her startled eyes upon it. Then quickly looked away.

"Did you yourself think a vision needed, in order that I might be justified in leaving the Convent, Hugh?"

"Nay, then," he cried, "always from the first I held thee mine in the sight of Heaven."

"Are you of opinion that, the vision being proved no vision, I should go back?"

"No!" said the Knight; and the word fell like a blow from a battle-axe.

"Does the Bishop expect that I shall return?"

"Yes," replied the Knight, groaning within himself that she should have chanced to change the form of her question.

"He would so expect," mused Mora. "He would be sure I should return.

He remembers my headstrong temper, and my imperious will. He remembers how I tore the Pope's mandate, placing my foot upon it. He knows I said how that naught would suffice me but a divine vision. Also he knoweth well the heart of a nun; and when I asked him if the heart of a nun could ever become as the heart of other women, he did most piously e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e: 'Heaven forbid?'"

Little crinkles of merriment showed faintly at the corners of her eyes.

The Bishop would have seen them, and smiled responsive. But the sad Knight saw them not.

"Mora," he said, "I leave thee free. I hold thee to no vows made through falsehood and fraud. I rate thy peace of mind before mine own content; thy true well-being, before mine own desires. Leaving thee free, dear Heart, I must leave thee free to choose. Loving thee as I love thee, I cannot stay here, yet leave thee free. My anguish of suspense would hamper thee. Therefore I purpose now to ride to my own home. Martin will ride with me. But tomorrow he will return, to ask if there is a message; and the next day, and the next. The Bishop allowed four days for hesitation. If thy decision should be to return to the Nunnery, his command is that thou ride the last stage of the journey fully robed, wearing thy cross of office. He himself will meet thee five miles this side of Worcester, and riding in, with much pomp and ceremony, will announce to the Community that, the higher service to 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 G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+eld--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, wors.h.i.+pped by Eastern shepherds, adored by Gentile kings, throned on His Mother's knee, wise-eyed and G.o.d-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.