The White Ladies of Worcester A Romance of the Twelfth Century

CHAPTER X

“I KNOW YOU FOR A MAN”

En­ter­ing her cell, the Pri­oress saw at once that her or­ders had been obeyed.

The hood­ed fig­ure stood on the far side of the cham­ber, lean­ing broad shoul­ders against the wall. Un­der the cape, the arms were fold­ed; she could see that the feet were crossed be­neath the robe. The dress was in­deed the dress of a White La­dy, but the form with­in it was so ob­vi­ous­ly that of a man--a big man, at bay, and in­clined to be de­fi­ant--that, de­spite the strange sit­ua­tion, de­spite her anger, and her fears, the con­trast be­tween the holy habit and its hid­den wear­er, forced from the Pri­oress an un­will­ing smile.

Clos­ing the door, she drew for­ward a chair of dark Span­ish wood, the gift of the Lord Bish­op; a chair which well be­to­kened the dig­ni­ty of her high of­fice.

Seat­ing her­self, she laid her left hand light­ly up­on the mane of one of the carved li­ons which formed, on ei­ther side, the arms of the chair; but her right hand still gripped un­seen the ivory hilt; while lean­ing slight­ly for­ward, with feet firm­ly plant­ed, she was ready at any mo­ment to spring erect.

“I know you for a man,” she said.

The thun­der rum­bled far away in the dis­tance.

The rain still splashed against the case­ment, but the storm had spent it­self; the sky was bright­en­ing. A pale slant of sun­shine broke through the part­ing clouds and, en­ter­ing the case­ment, gleamed on the jew­elled cross at the breast of the Pri­oress, and kin­dled in­to pe­cu­liar ra­di­ance the search­ing light of her clear eyes.

“I know you for a man,” she said again. "You stand there, re­vealed; and sure­ly you stand there, shamed. By plot­ting and plan­ning, by as­sum­ing our dress, you have suc­ceed­ed in forc­ing your un­de­sired pres­ence in­to this sa­cred clois­ter, where dwells a lit­tle com­pa­ny of wom­en who have left the world, nev­er to re­turn to it again; who have giv­en up much in or­der to de­vote them­selves to a life of con­tin­ual wor­ship and ado­ra­tion, gain­ing there­by a pow­er in in­ter­ces­sion which brings down bless­ing up­on those who still fight life's bat­tles in the world with­out.

"But it has meant the break­ing of many a ten­der tie. There are fa­thers and broth­ers dear to them, whom the nuns would love to see again; but they can­not do so, save, on rare oc­ca­sions, in the guest-​room at the gate; and then, with the grille be­tween.

"Sav­ing Bish­op or Priest, no foot of man may tread our clois­ters; no voice of man may be heard in these cells.

“Yet--by trick and sub­terfuge--you have in­trud­ed. Me­thinks I scarce should let you leave this place alive, to boast what you have done.”

The Pri­oress paused.

The fig­ure stood, with fold­ed arms, im­mov­able, lean­ing against the wall. There was a qual­ity in this mo­tion­less si­lence such as the Pri­oress had not con­nect­ed with her idea of Mary Seraphine's “Cousin Wil­fred.”

This was not a man to threat­en. Her threat came back to her, as if she had flung it against a stone wall. She tried an­oth­er line of rea­son­ing.

“I know you, Sir Wil­fred,” she said. “And I know why you are here. You have come to tempt away, or may­hap, if pos­si­ble, to force away one of our num­ber who but late­ly took her fi­nal vows. There was a time, not long ago, when you might have thwart­ed her de­sire to seek and find the best and high­est. But now you come too late. No bride of Heav­en turns from her high es­tate. Her choice is made. She will abide by it; and so, Sir Knight, must you.”

The rain had ceased. The storm was over. Sun­shine flood­ed the cell.

Once more the Pri­oress spoke, and her voice was gen­tle.

"I know the dis­ap­point­ment to you must be grievous. You took great risks; you ad­ven­tured much. How long you have plot­ted this in­tru­sion, I know not. You have been thwart­ed in your evil pur­pose by the faith­ful­ness of one old wom­an, our aged lay-​sis­ter, Mary Antony, who nev­er fails to count the White Ladies as they go and as they re­turn, and who re­port­ed at once to me that one more had re­turned than went.

“Do you not see in this the Hand of God? Will you not bow in pen­itence be­fore Him, con­fess­ing the sin­ful­ness of the thing you had in mind to do?”

The shroud­ed head was lift­ed high­er, as if with a proud ges­ture of dis­avow­al. At the same time, the hood slight­ly part­ing, the hand of a man, lean and brown, gripped it close.

The Pri­oress looked long at that lean, brown hand.

Then she rose slow­ly to her feet.

“Shew me--thy--face,” she said; and the ten­sion of each word was like a naked blade pass­ing in and out of quiv­er­ing flesh.

At sound of it the fig­ure stood erect, took one step for­ward, flung back the hood, tore open the robe and scapu­lary, loos­ing his arms from the wide sleeves.

And--as the hood fell back--the Pri­oress found her­self look­ing in­to a face she had not thought to see again in life--the face of him who once had been her lover.