The White Ladies of Worcester A Romance of the Twelfth Century

CHAPTER XXVI

LOVE NEV­ER FAILETH

The Bish­op await­ed the Pri­oress on that stone seat un­der the beech, from which the robin had car­ried off the pea.

He saw her com­ing through the sun­lit clois­ters.

As she moved down the steps, and came swift­ly to­ward him, he was con­scious at once of an in­de­fin­able change in her.

Had that ride up­on Icon set her free from tram­mels in which she had been hith­er­to im­meshed?

As she reached him, he took both her hands, so that she should not kneel.

“Al­ready I have been re­ceived with obei­sance, my daugh­ter,” he said; and told her of old Mary Antony's quaint lit­tle fig­ure, stand­ing to do the hon­ours in the door­way.

The Pri­oress, at this, laughed gai­ly, and in her turn told the Bish­op of the scene, on this very spot, when old Antony dis­played her peas to the robin.

“What peas?” asked the Bish­op; and so heard the whole sto­ry of the twen­ty-​five peas and the dai­ly count­ing, and of the iden­ti­fy­ing of cer­tain of the peas with var­ious mem­bers of the Com­mu­ni­ty. “And a large, white pea, cho­sen for its fine as­pect, was my­self,” said the Pri­oress; “and, leav­ing the Sub-​Pri­oress and Sis­ter Mary Re­bec­ca, Mas­ter Robin swooped down and flew off with me! Hear­ing cries of dis­tress, I has­tened hith­er, to find Mary Antony de­nounc­ing the robin as 'Knight of the Bloody Vest,' and mak­ing loud lamen­ta­tions over my ab­duc­tion. Her imag­in­ings be­come more re­al to her than re­al­ities.”

“She hath a faith­ful heart,” said the Bish­op, “and a shrewd wit.”

“Faith­ful? Aye,” said the Pri­oress, “faith­ful and lov­ing. Yet it is but late­ly I have re­alised, the love, be­neath her care­ful­ness and de­vo­tion.” The Pri­oress bent her lev­el brows, look­ing away to the over­hang­ing branch­es of the Pie­man's tree. “How quick­ly, in these places, we lose the very re­mem­brance of the mean­ing of per­son­al, hu­man love. We grow so soon ac­cus­tomed to al­low­ing our­selves to dwell on­ly up­on the ab­stract or the di­vine.”

“That is a loss,” said the Bish­op. He turned and be­gan to pace slow­ly to­ward the clois­ter; “a grievous loss, my daugh­ter. Soon­er than that you should suf­fer that loss, be­yond re­pair, I would let the dar­ing Knight of the Bloody Vest car­ry you off on swift wing. Bet­ter a robin's nest, if, love be there, than a nun­nery full of dead hearts.”

He heard the quick catch of her breath, but gave her no chance to speak.

“'And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three,'” quot­ed the Bish­op; “'but the great­est of these is love.'”

They were mov­ing through the clois­ters. The Pri­oress turned in the door­way, paus­ing that the Bish­op might pass in be­fore her.

“This, my lord,” she said, with a fine sweep of her arm, “is the abode of Faith and Hope, and al­so of that di­vine Love, which ex­cel­leth both Hope and Faith.”

“Nay,” said the Bish­op, “I pray you, lis­ten. 'Love suf­fer­eth long, and is kind; love en­vi­eth not; love vaun­teth not it­self, is not puffed up; doth not be­have it­self un­seem­ly; seeketh not her own; is not eas­ily pro­voked, think­ing no evil; re­joiceth not in in­iq­ui­ty, but re­joiceth in the truth; beareth all things, be­lieveth all things, hopeth all things, en­dureth all things. Love nev­er faileth.' Me­thinks,” said the Bish­op, in a tone of gen­tle med­ita­tion, as he en­tered the Pri­oress's cell, “the apos­tle was speak­ing of a most hu­man love; yet he rat­ed it high­er than faith and hope.”

“Are you still dwelling up­on Sis­ter Mary Seraphine, my lord?” in­quired the Pri­oress, and in her voice he heard the sound of a gath­er­ing storm.

“Nay, my dear Pri­oress,” said the Bish­op, seat­ing him­self in the Span­ish chair, and lay­ing his biret­ta up­on the ta­ble near by; “I speak not of self-​love, nor does the apos­tle whose words I quote. I take it, he writes of hu­man love, sanc­ti­fied; up­borne by faith and hope, yet greater than ei­ther; just as a bird is greater than its wings, yet can­not mount with­out them. We must have faith, we must have hope; then our poor earth­ly loves can rise from the low­er lev­el of self-​seek­ing and self-​pleas­ing and take their place among those things that are eter­nal.”

The Pri­oress had placed her chair op­po­site the Bish­op. She was very pale, and her lips trem­bled. She made so great an ef­fort to speak with calm­ness, that her voice sound­ed stern and hard.

“Why this talk of earth­ly loves, my Lord Bish­op, in a place where all earth­ly love has been re­nounced and for­got­ten?”

The Bish­op, see­ing those trem­bling lips, ig­nored the hard tones, and an­swered, very ten­der­ly, with a sim­ple di­rect­ness which scorned all eva­sion:

“Be­cause, my daugh­ter, I am here to plead for Hugh.”