The White Ladies of Worcester A Romance of the Twelfth Century

CHAPTER XXX

THE HARD­ER PART

Dawn broke--a sil­ver rift in the pur­ple sky--and present­ly stole, in pearly light, through the oriel win­dow. Up­on the Pri­oress's ta­ble, lay a beau­ti­ful­ly ex­ecut­ed copy of the Pope's man­date. Be­side it, care­ful­ly pieced to­geth­er, the torn frag­ments of the Bish­op's copy.

Al­so, open up­on the ta­ble, lay the Gre­go­ri­an Sacra­men­tary, and near to it strips of parch­ment up­on which the Pri­oress had copied two of those an­cient prayers, ap­pend­ing to each a care­ful trans­la­tion.

These are the sixth cen­tu­ry prayers which the Pri­oress had found com­fort in copy­ing and trans­lat­ing, dur­ing the long hours of her vig­il.

_O God, the Pro­tec­tor of all that trust in Thee, with­out Whom noth­ing is strong, noth­ing is holy; In­crease and mul­ti­ply up­on us Thy mer­cy, that Thou be­ing our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things tem­po­ral, that we fi­nal­ly lose not the things eter­nal; Grant this, O heav­en­ly Fa­ther, for Je­sus Christ's sake our Lord. Amen._

And on an­oth­er strip of parch­ment:

_O Lord, we be­seech Thee mer­ci­ful­ly to re­ceive the prayers of Thy peo­ple who call up­on Thee; and grant that they may both per­ceive and know what things they ought to do, and al­so may have grace and pow­er faith­ful­ly to ful­fil the same: through Je­sus Christ our Lord. Amen._

Then, in that dark­est hour be­fore the dawn, she had opened the heavy clasps of an even old­er vol­ume, and copied a short prayer from the Gelasian Sacra­men­tary, un­der date A.D. 492.

_Light­en our dark­ness, we be­seech Thee O Lord, and my Thy great mer­cy de­fend us from all per­ils and dan­gers of this night; for the love of Thy on­ly Son, our Saviour, Je­sus Christ. Amen._

This ap­peared to have been copied last of all. The ink was still wet up­on the parch­ment.

The can­dles had burned down to the sock­ets, and gone out. The Pri­oress's chair, pushed back from the ta­ble, was emp­ty.

As the dawn crept in, it dis­cov­ered her kneel­ing be­fore the shrine of the Madon­na, ab­sorbed in prayer and med­ita­tion.

She had not yet tak­en her fi­nal de­ci­sion as to the fu­ture; but her hes­ita­tion was now rather the slow, won­der­ing, open­ing of the mind to ac­cept an as­tound­ing fact, than any at­tempt to fight against it.

Not for one mo­ment could she doubt that our La­dy, in an­swer to Hugh's im­pas­sioned prayers, had cho­sen to make plain the Di­vine will, by means of this won­der­ful and most ex­plic­it vi­sion to the aged lay-​sis­ter, Mary Antony.

When, hav­ing left Mary Antony, as she sup­posed, asleep, the Pri­oress had reached her own cell, her first ador­ing cry, as she pros­trat­ed her­self be­fore the shrine, had tak­en the form of the thanks­giv­ing once of­fered by the Saviour: “I thank Thee, O Fa­ther, Lord of Heav­en and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and pru­dent, and hast re­vealed them un­to babes.”

She and the Bish­op had in­deed been wise and pru­dent in their own es­ti­ma­tion, as they dis­cussed this dif­fi­cult prob­lem. Yet to them no clear light, no Di­vine vi­sion, had been vouch­safed.

It was to this aged nun, the most sim­ple--so thought the Pri­oress--the most hum­ble, the most child­like in the com­mu­ni­ty, that the rev­ela­tion had been giv­en.

The Pri­oress re­mem­bered the nosegay of weeds of­fered to our La­dy; the games with peas; the child­ish plea­sure in the so­ci­ety of the robin; all the many in­di­ca­tions that sec­ond-​child­hood had gen­tly come at the close of the long life of Mary Antony; just as the moon be­gins as a sick­le turned one way and, af­ter com­ing to the full, wanes at length to a sick­le turned the oth­er way; so, af­ter nine­ty years of life's pil­grim­age, Mary Antony was a lit­tle child again--and of such is the King­dom of Heav­en; and to such the Di­vine will is most eas­ily re­vealed.

The Pri­oress was con­scious that she and the Bish­op--the wise and pru­dent--had so com­plete­ly ar­rived at de­ci­sions, along the lines of their own points of view, that their minds were not ready to re­ceive a Di­vine un­veil­ing. But the sim­ple, child­like mind of the old lay-​sis­ter, full on­ly of hum­ble faith and lov­ing de­vo­tion, was ready; and to her the man­ifes­ta­tion came.

No shade of doubt as to the gen­uine­ness of the vi­sion en­tered the mind of the Pri­oress. She and the Bish­op alone knew of the Knight's in­tru­sion in­to the Nun­nery, and of her in­ter­view with him in her cell.

Be­fore go­ing in search of the in­trud­er, she had or­dered Mary Antony to the kitchens; and dis­obe­di­ence to a com­mand of the Rev­erend Moth­er, was a thing un­dreamed of in the Con­vent.

Af­ter­wards, her anx­iety lest any ques­tion should come up con­cern­ing the re­turn of a twen­ty-​first White La­dy when but twen­ty had gone, was com­plete­ly set at rest by that which had seemed to her old Antony's for­tu­nate mis­take in be­liev­ing her­self to have been mis­tak­en.

In re­count­ing the fic­ti­tious vi­sion, with an al­most un­can­ny clev­er­ness, Mary Antony had de­scribed the Knight, not as he had ap­peared in the Pri­oress's cell, in tu­nic and hose, a sim­ple dress of vel­vet and cloth, but in full panoply as a Knight-​Cru­sad­er. The shin­ing ar­mour and the blood-​red cross, ful­ly in keep­ing with the vi­sion, would have pre­clud­ed the idea of an eye-​wit­ness of the ac­tu­al scene, had such a thought un­con­scious­ly sug­gest­ed it­self to the Pri­oress.

As it was, it seemed be­yond ques­tion that all the knowl­edge of Hugh shewn by the old lay-​sis­ter, of his per­son his at­ti­tude, his very words, could have come to her by Di­vine rev­ela­tion alone. That be­ing so, how could the Pri­oress pre­sume to doubt the cli­max of the vi­sion, when our blessèd La­dy placed her hand in Hugh's, ut­ter­ing the won­drous words: “Take her. She hath been ev­er thine. I have but kept her for thee.”

Over and over the Pri­oress re­peat­ed these words; over and over she thanked our La­dy for hav­ing vouch­safed so ex­plic­it a rev­ela­tion. Yet was she dis­tressed that her in­most spir­it failed to re­spond, ac­claim­ing the words as di­vine. She knew they must be di­vine, yet could not feel that they were so.

As dawn crept in­to the cell, she found her­self re­peat­ing again and again “A sign, a sign! Thy will was hid from me; yet I ac­cept its rev­ela­tion through this babe. But I ask a sign which shall speak to mine own heart, al­so! A sign, a sign!”

She rose and opened wide the case­ment, not of the oriel win­dow, but of one to the right of the group of the Vir­gin and child, and near by it.

She was worn out both in mind and body, yet could not bring her­self to leave the shrine or to seek her couch.

She re­mem­bered the ex­am­ple of that rev­erend and holy man, Bish­op Wul­stan. She had late­ly been read­ing, in the Chron­icles of Flo­rence, the monk of Worces­ter, how “in his ear­ly life, when ap­point­ed to be chanter and trea­sur­er of the Church, Wul­stan em­braced the op­por­tu­ni­ty of serv­ing God with less re­straint, giv­ing him­self up to a con­tem­pla­tive life, go­ing in­to the church day and night to pray and read the Bible. So de­vot­ed was he to sa­cred vig­ils that not on­ly would he keep him­self awake dur­ing the night, but day and night al­so; and when the ur­gen­cy of na­ture at last com­pelled him to sleep, he did not pam­per his limbs by rest­ing on a bed or cov­er­ings, but would lie down for a short time on one of the bench­es of the Church, rest­ing his head on the book which he had used for pray­ing or read­ing.”

The Pri­oress chanced to have read this pas­sage aloud, in the Re­fec­to­ry, two days be­fore.

As she stood in the dawn light, over­come with sleep, yet un­will­ing to leave her vig­il at the shrine, she re­mem­bered the ex­am­ple of this great­ly revered Bish­op of Worces­ter, “a man of great piety and dove­like sim­plic­ity, one beloved of God, and of the peo­ple whom he ruled in all things,” dead just over a hun­dred years, yet ev­er liv­ing in the mem­ory of all.

So, re­mem­ber­ing his ex­am­ple, the Pri­oress went to her ta­ble, and shut­ting the clasps of her trea­sured Gre­go­ri­an Sacra­men­tary, placed it on the floor be­fore the shrine of the Vir­gin.

Then, fling­ing her cloak up­on the ground, and a silk cov­er­ing over the book, she sank down, stretched her weary limbs up­on the cloak and laid her head on the Sacra­men­tary, trust­ing that some of the many sa­cred prayers there­in con­tained would pass in­to her mind while she slept.

Yet still her spir­it cried: “A sign, a sign! How­ev­er slight, how­ev­er small; a sign mine own heart can un­der­stand.”

Whether she slept a few mo­ments on­ly or an hour, she could not tell. Yet she felt strange­ly rest­ed, when she was awak­ened by the sound of a most heav­en­ly song out­poured. It flood­ed her cell with liq­uid trills, as of lit­tle sil­ver bells.

The Pri­oress opened her eyes, with­out stir­ring.

Sun­light streamed in through the open win­dow; and lo, up­on the mar­ble hand of the Madon­na, that very hand which, in the vi­sion, had tak­en hers and placed it with­in Hugh's, stood Mary Antony's robin, that gay lit­tle Knight of the Bloody Vest, pour­ing forth so won­der­ful a song of praise, and love, and ful­ness of joy, that it seemed as if his lit­tle ruf­fling throat must burst with the rush of joy­ous melody.

The robin sang. Our La­dy smiled. The Babe on her knees looked mer­ry.

The Pri­oress lay watch­ing, not dar­ing to move; her head rest­ing on the Sacra­men­tary.

Then in­to her mind there came the sug­ges­tion of a test--a sign.

“If he fly around the cham­ber,” she whis­pered, “my place is here. But if he fly straight out in­to the open, then doth our blessèd La­dy bid me al­so to arise and go.”

And, scarce had she so thought, when, with a last tri­umphant trill of joy, straight from our La­dy's hand, like an ar­row from the bow, the robin shot through the open case­ment, and out in­to the sun­ny, new­ly-​awak­ened world be­yond.

The Pri­oress rose, fold­ed her cloak, placed the book back up­on the ta­ble; then kneeled be­fore the shrine, took off her cross of of­fice, and laid it up­on our La­dy's hand, from whence the lit­tle bird had flown.

Then with bowed head, pale face, hands meek­ly crossed up­on her breast, the Pri­oress knelt long in prayer.

The breeze of an ear­ly sum­mer morn, blew in at the open win­dow, and fanned her cheek.

In the gar­den with­out, the robin sang to his mate.

At length the Pri­oress rose, mov­ing as one who walked in a strange dream, passed in­to the in­ner cell, and sought her couch.

The Bish­op's prayer had been an­swered.

The Pri­oress had been giv­en grace and strength to choose the hard­er part, be­liev­ing the hard­er part to be, in very deed, God's will for her.

And, as she laid her head at last up­on the pil­low, a prayer from the Gre­go­ri­an Sacra­men­tary slipped in­to her mind, calm­ing her to sleep, with its mes­sage of over­rul­ing pow­er and eter­nal peace.

_Almighty and ev­er­last­ing God, Who dost gov­ern all things in heav­en and earth; Mer­ci­ful­ly bear the sup­pli­ca­tions of Thy peo­ple, and grant us Thy peace, all the days of our life; through Je­sus Christ our Lord. Amen._