The White Ladies of Worcester A Romance of the Twelfth Century

CHAPTER XII

ALAS, THE PITY OF IT!

At length the Pri­oress spoke.

“Alas,” she said, “the pity of it! Ah, the cru­el, _cru­el_ pity of it!”

Her voice, so sweet and ten­der, yet so hope­less in the un­ques­tion­ing fi­nal­ity of its re­gret, struck cold up­on the heart of the Knight.

“But, my belovèd, I have found thee,” he said, and drop­ping up­on one knee at her feet, he put out his hands to cov­er both hers. But the Pri­oress was too quick for him. She hid her hands be­neath her scapu­lary. The Knight's brown fin­gers closed on the li­ons' heads.

“Touch me not,” said the Pri­oress.

The Knight flushed, dark­ly.

“You are mine,” he said. “Mine to have and to keep. Dur­ing these wretched years we have schooled our­selves each to think of the oth­er as wed­ded. Now we know that nei­ther has been faith­less. I have found thee, my belovèd, and I will not let thee go.”

“Hugh,” said the Pri­oress, “I _am_ wed­ded. You come too late. Saw you not the sa­cred ring up­on my hand? Know you not that ev­ery nun is the bride of Christ?”

“You are mine!” said the Knight, fierce­ly; and he laid his great hand up­on her knee.

From be­neath her scapu­lary, the Pri­oress drew the dag­ger.

“Be­fore I went to the clois­ter door,” she said, “I took this from its hid­ing-​place, and put it in my gir­dle. I guessed I had a man to deal with; though, Heav­en knows, I dreamed not it was thou! But I tell thee, Hugh, if thou, or any man, at­tempt to lay de­fil­ing touch up­on any nun in this Pri­ory--my­self, or an­oth­er--I strike, and I strike home. This blade will be driv­en up to the hilt in the of­fend­er's heart.”

The Knight rose to his feet, stepped to the win­dow and leaned, with fold­ed arms, against the wall.

“Put back thy weapon,” he said, stern­ly, “in­to its hid­ing-​place. No oth­er man is here; yet, should an­oth­er come, my sword would well suf­fice to guard thine hon­our, and the hon­our of thy nuns.”

She looked at his dark face, scorn­ful in its pain; then went at once, obe­di­ent, to the se­cret pan­el.

“Yes, Hugh,” she said. “That much of trust in­deed I owe thy love.”

As she placed the dag­ger in the wall and closed the pan­el, some­thing fell from her, in­tan­gi­ble, yet re­al.

For so long, she had had to com­mand. Bow­ing, kneel­ing, hur­ry­ing wom­en flew to do her be­hests. Each vied with the oth­ers to mag­ni­fy her Of­fice. Of­ten, she felt lone­ly by rea­son of her dig­ni­ty.

And now--a man's dark face frowned on her in scorn­ful anger; a man's stern voice flung back her elab­orate threat with a short com­mand, which dis­armed her, yet which she obeyed. More­over, she found it strange­ly sweet to obey. Be­hind the stern­ness, be­hind the scorn­ful anger, there throbbed a great love. In that love she trust­ed; but with that love she had to deal, putting it from her with a fi­nal­ity which should be be­yond ques­tion.

Yet the “Pri­oress” fell from her, as she closed the pan­el. It was the Wom­an and the Saint who moved over to the win­dow and stood be­side the Knight, in the ra­di­ance of a gold­en sun­set af­ter storm.

There was about her, as she spoke, a wist­ful hum­ble­ness; and a pa­tient sad­ness, in­finite­ly touch­ing.

“Sir Hugh,” she said, “my dear Knight, whom I ev­er found brave and ten­der, and whom I now know to have been al­ways loy­al and true--there is no need that I should add a word to your recital. The facts you wrung from Al­fri­da--God grant for­give­ness to that tor­ment­ed heart--are all true. Be­liev­ing the mes­sen­ger, not dream­ing of doubt­ing Eleanor, my one thought was to hide from the world my bro­ken heart, my shat­tered pride. I has­tened to of­fer to God the love and the life which had been slight­ed by man. I con­fess this has since seemed to me but a poor sec­ond-​best to have brought to Him, Who in­deed should have our very best. But, dai­ly kneel­ing at His Feet, I said: 'A bro­ken and a con­trite heart, Lord, Thou wilt not de­spise.' My heart was 'bro­ken,' when I brought it here. It has been 'con­trite' since. And well I know, al­though so far from wor­thy, it has not been de­spised.”

She lift­ed her eyes to the gold­en glo­ry be­hind the bat­tle­ments of pur­ple cloud.

“Our blessèd La­dy in­ter­ced­ed,” she said, sim­ply; “she, who un­der­stands a wom­an's heart.”

The Knight was breath­ing hard. The fold­ed arms rose and fell, with the heav­ing of his chest. But he kept his lips firm shut; though pray­ing, all the while, that our La­dy might have, al­so, some un­der­stand­ing of the heart of a man!

“I think it right that you should know, dear Hugh,” went on the sad voice, gen­tly; “that, at first, I suf­fered great­ly. I spent long ag­oniz­ing nights, kneel­ing be­fore our La­dy's shrine, im­plor­ing strength to con­quer the love and the long­ing which had be­come sin.”

A sti­fled groan broke from the Knight.

The gold­en light shone in her stead­fast eyes, and played about her no­ble brow.

“And strength was giv­en,” she said, very low.

“Mo­ra!” cried the Knight--She start­ed. It was so long since she had heard her own name--“You prayed for strength to con­quer, when you thought it sin; just as I rode out to meet the foe, to fight and slay, and af­ter­ward wres­tled with un­known tongues, do­ing all those things which were hard­est, while striv­ing to quench my love for you. But when I knew that no oth­er man had right to you or ev­er had had right, why then I found that noth­ing had slain my love, nor ev­er could. And Mo­ra, now you know that I am free, is your love dead?”

She clasped her hands over the cross at her breast. His voice held a deep pas­sion of ap­peal; yet he strove, loy­al­ly, to keep it calm.

“Lis­ten, Hugh,” she said. “If, think­ing me faith­less, you had turned for con­so­la­tion to an­oth­er; if, though you brought her but your sec­ond best, you yet had won and wed her; now, find­ing af­ter all that I had not wed­ded Humphry, would you leave your bride, and try to wake again your love for me?”

“You seek to place me,” he said, “in straits in which, by mine own act, I shall nev­er be. Lov­ing you as I love you, I could wed no oth­er while you live.”

She paled, but per­sist­ed.

“But, _if_, Hugh? _If_?”

“Then, no,” he said. “I should not leave one I had wed. But----”

“Hugh,” she said, “think­ing you faith­less, I took the holy vows which wed­ded me to Heav­en. How can I leave my heav­en­ly Bride­groom, for love of any man up­on this earth?”

“Not 'any man,'” he an­swered; “but your be­trothed, re­turned to claim you; the man to whom you said as part­ing words: 'Maid or wife, I am all thine own; thine and none oth­er's for­ev­er.' Ah, that brings the warm blood to thy cheek! Oh, my Heart's Life, if it was true then, it is true still! God is not a man that he should lie, or rob an­oth­er of his bride. If I had wed an­oth­er wom­an, I should have done that thing, hon­est­ly be­liev­ing thee the wife of an­oth­er man. But, all these years, while thou and I were both de­ceived, He, Who knoweth all, has known the truth. He knew thee be­trothed to me. He heard thee say, up­on the bat­tle­ments, when last we stood to­geth­er: 'God knows, I am all thine own.' He knew how, when I thought I had lost thee, I yet lived faith­ful to the pure mem­ory of our love. The day thy vows were made, He knew that I was free, and thou, there­fore, still pledged to me. Shall a man rob God? Ay, he may. But shall God rob a man? Nay, then, nev­er!”

She trem­bled, wa­vered; then fled to the shrine of the Vir­gin, kneel­ing with hands out­stretched.

“Holy Moth­er of God,” she sobbed, “teach him that I dare not do this thing! Shew him that I can­not break my vows. Help him to un­der­stand that I would not, if I could.”

He fol­lowed, and kneeled be­side her; his proud head bent; his voice break­ing with emo­tion.

“Blessèd Vir­gin,” he said. “Thou who didst dwell in the earth­ly home at Nazareth, help this wom­an of mine to un­der­stand, that if she break her troth to me, hold­ing her­self from me, now when I am come to claim her, she sends me forth to an emp­ty life, to a hearth be­side which no wom­an will sit, to a home for­ev­er des­olate.”

To­geth­er they knelt, be­fore the ten­der im­age of Moth­er and Child; to­geth­er, yet apart; he, loy­al­ly mind­ful not so much as to brush against a fold of her veil.

The dark face, and the fair, were lift­ed, side by side, as they knelt be­fore the Madon­na. For a while so mo­tion­less they kneeled, they might have been fine­ly-​mod­elled fig­ures; he, bronze; she, mar­ble.

Then, with a sud­den move­ment, she put out her right hand, and caught his left.

Firm­ly his fin­gers closed over hers; but he drew no near­er.

Yet as they knelt thus with clasped hands, his puls­ing life seemed to flow through her, un­do­ing, in one wild, sweet mo­ment, the work of years of fast and vig­il.

“Ah, Hugh,” she cried, sud­den­ly, “spare me! Spare me! Tempt me not!”

Loos­ing her hand from his, she clasped both up­on her breast.

The Knight rose, and stood be­side her.

“Mo­ra,” he said, and his voice held a new tone, a tone of sad­ness and solem­ni­ty; "far be it from me to tempt you. I will plead with you but once again, in pres­ence of our La­dy and of the Holy Child; and, hav­ing so done, I will say no more.

"I ask you to leave this place, which you would nev­er have en­tered had you known your lover was yours, and need­ing you. I ask you to keep your plight­ed word to me, and to be­come my wife. If you refuse, I go, re­turn­ing not again. I leave you here, to kneel in peace, by night or day, be­fore the shrine of the Madon­na. But--I bid you to re­mem­ber, day and night, that be­cause of this which you have done, there can be no Madon­na in my home. No wom­an will ev­er sit be­side my hearth, hold­ing a lit­tle child up­on her knees.

"You leave to me the cru­ci­fix--heart bro­ken, love be­trayed; feet and hands nailed to the wood of cru­el cir­cum­stance; side pierced by spear of treach­ery--lone­ly, for­sak­en. But you take from me all the best, both in life and in re­li­gion; all that tells of love, of joy, of hope for the years to come.

“Oh, my belovèd, weigh it well! There are so many, with a true vo­ca­tion, serv­ing Heav­en in Con­vent and in Clois­ter. There is but one wom­an in the whole world for me. In the sight of Heav­en, noth­ing di­vides us. Con­vent walls now stand be­tween--but they were built by man, not God. Vows of celiba­cy were not meant to sun­der lov­ing hearts. Mo­ra? . . . Come!”

The Pri­oress rose and faced him.

“I can­not come,” she said. “That which I have taught to oth­ers, I must my­self per­form. Hugh, I am dead to the world; and if I be dead to the world, how can I live to you? Had I, in very deed, died and been en­tombed, you would not have gone down in­to the vaults and forced my rest­ing-​place, that you might look up­on my face, clasp my cold hand, and pour in­to deaf ears a tale of love. Yet that is what, by trick and ar­ti­fice, you now have done. You come to a dead wom­an, say­ing; 'Love me, and be my wife.' She must, per­force, make an­swer: 'How shall I, who am dead to the world, live any longer there­in?' Take a wife from among the Liv­ing, Hugh. Come not to seek a bride among the Dead.”

“Moth­er of God!” ex­claimed the Knight, “is this re­li­gion?”

He turned to the win­dow, then to the door. “How can I go from here?”

The sti­fled hor­ror in his voice chilled the very soul of the wom­an to whom he spoke. She had, in­deed at last made him to un­der­stand.

“I must get you hence un­seen,” she said. “I dare not pass you out by the Con­vent gate. I fear me, you must go back the way you came; nor can you go alone. We hold the key to un­lock the door lead­ing from our pas­sage in­to the Cathe­dral crypt. I will now send all the nuns to the Re­fec­to­ry. Then I my­self must take you to the crypt.”

“Can I not walk alone,” asked the Knight, brusque­ly; “re­turn­ing you the key by mes­sen­ger?”

“Nay,” said the Pri­oress, “I dare run no risks. So quick­ly ru­mours are afloat. To-​mor­row, this strange hour must be a dream; and you and I alone, the dream­ers. Now, while I go and make safe the way, put you on again the robe and hood. When I re­turn and beck­on, fol­low silent­ly.”

The Pri­oress passed out, clos­ing the door be­hind her.