The White Ladies of Worcester A Romance of the Twelfth Century

CHAPTER XIII

“SEND HER TO ME!”

The Pri­oress stood for a mo­ment out­side the closed door. The peace­ful si­lence of the pas­sage helped her to the out­ward calm which must be hers be­fore she could bring her­self to face her nuns.

Mov­ing slow­ly to the far­ther end, she un­locked the cell of Sis­ter Mary Seraphine, feel­ing a shamed hu­mil­ity that she should have made so sure she had to deal with “Wil­fred,” and have thought such scorn of him and Seraphine. Alas! The wrong deeds of those they love, oft hum­ble the purest, no­blest spir­its in­to the soil­ing dust.

Next, the Pri­oress her­self rang the Re­fec­to­ry bell.

The hour for the evening meal was long passed; the nuns has­tened out, read­ily.

As they trooped to­ward the stairs lead­ing down to the Re­fec­to­ry, they saw their Pri­oress, very pale, very erect, stand­ing with her back to the door of her cham­ber.

Each nun made a gen­uflex­ion as she passed; and to each, the Pri­oress slight­ly in­clined her head.

To Sis­ter Mary Re­bec­ca, who kneeled at once, she spoke: “I come not to the meal this evening. In the ab­sence of Moth­er Sub-​Pri­oress, you will take my place.”

“Yes, Rev­erend Moth­er,” said Sis­ter Mary Re­bec­ca, meek­ly, and kissed the hem of the robe of the Pri­oress; then ris­ing, has­tened on, charmed to have a po­si­tion of au­thor­ity, how­ev­er tem­po­rary.

When all had passed, the Pri­oress went in­to the clois­ters, walked round them; looked over in­to the gar­den, ob­serv­ing ev­ery pos­si­ble place from which pry­ing eyes might have sight of the way from the pas­sage to the crypt en­trance. But the gar­den, al­ready full of pur­ple shad­ows, was left to the cir­cling swifts. The robin sang an evening song from the bough, of the pie­man's tree.

The Pri­oress re­turned along the pas­sage, look­ing in­to ev­ery cell. Each door stood open wide; each cell was emp­ty. The sick nuns were on a fur­ther pas­sage, round the cor­ner, be­yond the Re­fec­to­ry stairs. Yet she passed along this al­so, mak­ing sure that the door of each oc­cu­pied cell was shut.

Stand­ing mo­tion­less at the top of the Re­fec­to­ry steps, she could hear the dis­tant clat­ter of plat­ters, the shuf­fling feet of the lay-​sis­ters as they car­ried the dish­es to and from the kitchens; and, above it all, the monotonous voice of Sis­ter Mary Re­bec­ca read­ing aloud to the nuns while they supped.

Then the Pri­oress took down one of the crypt lanterns and light­ed it.

* * * * * *

Mean­while the Knight, left alone, stood for a few mo­ments, as if stunned.

He had played for a big stake and lost; yet he felt more un­nerved by the un­ex­pect­ed fi­nal­ity of his own ac­qui­es­cence in de­feat, than by the firm re­fusal which had brought that de­feat about.

It seemed to him, as he now stood alone, that sud­den­ly he had re­alised the ex­traor­di­nary de­tach­ment wrought by years of clois­tered life. Aflame with love and long­ing he had come, seek­ing the Liv­ing among the Dead. It would have been less bit­ter to have knelt be­side her tomb, know­ing the heart for­ev­er still had, to the last, beat true with love for him; know­ing the dead arms, ly­ing cold and stiff, had he come soon­er, would have been flung around him; know­ing the lips, now silent in death, liv­ing, would have called to him in ten­der­est greet­ing.

But this cold trav­es­ty of the ra­di­ant wom­an he had left, said: “Touch me not,” and bade him seek a wife else­where; he, who had re­mained faith­ful to her, even when he had thought her faith­less.

And yet, cold though she was, in her saint­ly aloof­ness, she was still the wom­an he loved. More­over she still had the no­ble car­riage, the rich wom­an­ly beau­ty, the look of vi­tal, phys­ical vigour, which marked her out as meant by Na­ture to be the moth­er of brave sons and fair daugh­ters. Yet he must leave her--to this!

He looked round the room, not­ed the low arch­way lead­ing to the sleep­ing cham­ber, took a step to­ward it, then fell back as from a sanc­tu­ary; marked the great ta­ble, cov­ered with missals, parch­ments, and vel­lum. It might well have been the cell of a learned monk, rather than the cham­ber of the wom­an he loved. His eye, trav­el­ling round, fell up­on the Madon­na and Child.

In the pure evening light there was a strange­ly ar­rest­ing qual­ity about the mar­ble group; some­thing in­finite­ly hu­man in the brood­ing ten­der­ness of the Moth­er, as she bent over the smil­ing Babe. It spoke of home, rather than of the clois­ter. It struck a chord in the heart of the Knight, a chord which rang clear and true, above the jan­gle of dis­pu­ta­tion and bit­ter­ness.

He put out his hand and touched the lit­tle foot of the Holy Babe.

“Moth­er of God,” he said aloud, “send her to me! Take pity on a hun­gry heart, a lone­ly home, a des­olate hearth. Send her to me!”

Then he lift­ed from the floor the white robe and hood, and drew them on.