CHAPTER XL
THE HEART OF A NUN
Hugh and Mora passed together through the great hall, along the armoury, down the winding stair and so out into the gardens.
The Knight led the way across the lawn and through the rose garden, toward the yew hedge and the bowling-green.
Old Debbie, looking from her casement, thought them beautiful beyond words as she watched them cross the lawn—she in white and gold, he in white and silver; his dark head towering above her fair one, though she was uncommon tall. And, falling upon her knees, old Debbie prayed to the Angel Gabriel that she might live to hold in her arms, and rock to sleep upon her bosom, sweet babes, both fair and dark: "Fair little maids," she said, "and fine, dark boys," explaining to Gabriel that which she thought would be most fit.
Meanwhile Hugh and Mora, walking a yard apart—all unconscious of these family plans, being so anxiously made for them at an upper casement—bent their tall heads and passed under the arch in the yew hedge, crossed the bowling-green, and entered the arbour of the golden roses.
Hugh led the way; yet Mora gladly followed. The Bishop's presence seemed to abide here, in comfort and protection.
All signs of the early repast were gone from the rustic table.
Mora took her seat there where in the early morning she had sat; while
Hugh, not knowing he did so, passed into the Bishop's place.
The sun shone through the golden roses, hanging in clusters over the entrance.
The sense of the Bishop's presence so strongly pervaded the place, that almost at once Mora felt constrained to speak of him.
"Hugh," she said, "very early this morning, long before you were awake, the Bishop and I broke our fast, in this arbour, together."
The Knight smiled.
"I knew that," he said. "In his own characteristic way the Bishop told it me. 'My son,' he said, 'you have reversed the sacred parable. In your case it was the bride-groom who, this morning, slumbered and slept.' 'True, my lord,' said I. 'But there were no foolish virgins about.' 'Nay, verily!' replied the Bishop. 'The two virgins awake at that hour were pre-eminently wise: the one, making as the sun rose most golden pats of butter and crusty rolls; the other, rising early to partake of them with appetite. Truly there were no foolish virgins about. There was but one foolish prelate.'"
She, who so lately had been Prioress of the White Ladies, flushed with indignation at the words.
"Wherefore said he so?" she inquired, severely. "He, who is always wiser than the wisest."
Hugh noted the heightened colour and the ready protest.
"Perhaps," he suggested, speaking slowly, as if choosing his words with care, "the Bishop's head, being so wise, revealed to him, in himself, a certain foolishness of heart."
Mora struck the table with her hand.
"Nay then, verily!" she cried. "Head and heart alike are wise; and—unlike other men—the Bishop's head rules his heart."
"And a most noble heart,", the Knight said, with calmness; neither wincing at the blow upon the table, nor at the "unlike other men," flung out in challenge.
Then, folding his arms upon the table, and looking searchingly into the face of his bride: "Tell me," he said, "during all these years, has this friendship with Symon of Worcester meant much to thee?"
Something in his tone arrested Mora. She answered, with an equal earnestness: "Yes, Hugh. It has done more for me than can well be told. It has kept living and growing in me much that would otherwise have been stunted or dead; an ever fresh flow of thought, where, but for him, would have been a stagnant pool. My sad heart might have grown bitter, my nature too austere, particularly when advancement to high office brought with it an inevitable loneliness, had it not been for the interest and charm of his visits and missives; his constant gifts and kindness. There is about him a light-hearted gaiety, a whimsical humour, a joy in life, which cannot fail to wake responsive gladness in any heart with which he comes in contact. And mingled with his shrewd wisdom, his wide knowledge of men and matters, there is ever a tender charity, which thinks no evil, always believing in good and hoping for the best; a love which never fails; a kindness which makes one ashamed of harbouring hard or revengeful thoughts."
Hugh made no reply. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the beautiful face before him, now glowing with enthusiasm. He waited for something more. And presently it came.
"Also," said Mora, slowly: "a very precious memory of my early days at Court, when as a young maiden I attended on the Queen, was kept alive by a remarkable likeness in the Bishop to one who was, as I learned this morning for the first time, actually near of kin to him. Do you remember, Hugh, long years ago, that I spoke to you of Father Gervaise?"
"I do remember," said the Knight.
She leaned her elbows on the table, framed her face in her hands, and looked straight into his eyes.
"Father Gervaise was more to me than I then told you, Hugh."
"What was he to thee, Mora?"
"He was the Ideal of my girlhood. For a time, I thought of him by day, I dreamed of him by night. No word of his have I ever forgotten. Many of his sayings and precepts have influenced, and still deeply influence, my whole life. In fact, Hugh, I loved Father Gervaise; not as a woman loves a man—ah, no! But, rather, as a nun loves her Lord."
"I see," said the Knight. "But you were not then a nun, Mora."
"No, I was not then a nun. But I have been a nun since then; and that is how I can best describe my love for the Queen's Confessor."
"Long after," said the Knight, "you were betrothed to me?"
"Yes, Hugh."
"How did you love me, Mora?"
Across the rustic table they looked full into each other's eyes. Tragedy, stalking around that rose-covered arbour, drew very near, and they knew it. Almost, his grim shadow came between them and the sunshine.
Then the Knight smiled; and with that smile rushed back the flood-tide of remembrance; remembrance of all which their young love had meant, of the sweet promise it had held.
His eyes still holding hers, she smiled also.
The golden roses clustering in the entrance swayed and nodded in the sunlight, as a gently rising breeze fanned them to and fro.
"Dear Knight," she said, softly, a wistful tenderness in her voice, "I suppose I loved you, as a girl loves the man who has won her."
"Mora," said Hugh, "I have something to tell thee."
"I listen," she said.
"My wife—so wholly, so completely, do I love thee, that I would not consciously keep anything from thee. So deeply do I love thee, that I would sooner any wrong or sin of mine were known to thee and by thee forgiven, than that thou shouldest think me one whit better than I am."
He paused.
Her eyes were tender and compassionate. Often she had listened, with a patient heart of charity, to the tedious, morbid, self-centred confessions of kneeling nuns, who watched with anxious eyes for the sign which would mean that they might clutch at the hem of her robe and press it to their lips in token that they were forgiven.
But she had had no experience of the sins of men. What had the "splendid Knight" upon his conscience, which must now be told her, in this sunny arbour, on the morning of their bridal day?
Her heart throbbed painfully. Alas, it was still the heart of a nun. It would not be controlled. Must she hear wild tales of wickedness and shame, of which she would but partly understand the meaning?
Oh, for the calm of the Cloister! Oh, for the sheltered purity of her quiet cell!
Yet his eyes, still meeting hers, were clear and fearless.
"I listen," she said.
"Mora, not long ago a wondrous tale was told me of a man's great love for thee—a man, nobler than I, in that he mastered all selfish desires; a love higher than mine, in that it put thy welfare, in all things, first. Hearing this tale, I failed both myself and thee, for I said: 'I pray heaven that, if she come to me, she may never know that she once won the love of so greatly better a man than I.' But, since I clasped thy hand in mine, and the Bishop, laying his on either side, gave thee to be my wife, I have known there would be no peace for me if I feared to trust thee with this knowledge, because that the man who loved thee was a better man than the man who, by God's mercy and our Lady's grace, has won thee."
As the Knight spoke thus, the grey eyes fixed on his face grew wide with wonder; soft, with a great compunction; yet, at the corners, shewed a little crinkle in which the Bishop would instantly have recognised the sign of approaching merriment.
Was this then a sample of the unknown sins of men? Nothing here, surely, to cause the least throb of apprehension, even to the heart of a nun! But what strange tale had reached the ears of this most dear and loyal Knight? She leaned a little nearer to him, speaking in a tone which was music to his heart.
"Dear Knight of mine," she said, "no tale of a man's love for me can have been a true one. Yet am I glad that, deeming it true, and feeling as it was your first impulse to feel, you now tell me quite frankly what you felt, thus putting from yourself all sense of wrong, while giving me the chance to say to you, that none more noble than this faithful Knight can have loved me; for, saving a few Court pages, mostly popinjays, and Humphry of Camforth, of whom the less said the better, no other man hath loved me."
More kindly she looked on him than she yet had looked. She leaned across the table.
By reaching out his arms he could have caught her lovely face between his hands.
Her eyes were merry. Her lips smiled.
Greatly tempted was the Knight to agree that, saving himself, and Humphry of Camforth, of whom the less said the better, none save Court popinjays had loved her. Yet in his heart he knew that ever between them would be this fact of his knowledge of the love of Father Gervaise for her, and of the noble renunciation inspired by that love. He had no intention of betraying the Bishop; but Mora's own explanation, making it quite clear that she would not be likely to suspect the identity of the Bishop with his supposed cousin, Father Gervaise, seemed to the Knight to remove the one possible reason for concealment. He was willing to risk present loss, rather than imperil future peace.
With an effort which made his voice almost stern: "The tale was a true one," he said.
She drew back, regarding him with grave eyes, her hands folded before her.
"Tell me the tale," she said, "and I will pronounce upon its truth."
"Years ago, Mora, when you were a young maiden at the Court, attending on the Queen, you were most deeply loved by one who knew he could never ask you in marriage. That being so, so noble was his nature and so unselfish his love, that he would not give himself the delight of seeing you, nor the enjoyment of your friendship, lest, being so strong a thing, his love—even though unexpressed—should reach and stir your heart to a response which, might hinder you from feeling free to give yourself, when a man who could offer all sought to win you. Therefore, Mora, he left the Court, he left the country. He went to foreign lands. He thought not of himself. He desired for you the full completion which comes by means of wedded love. He feared to hinder this. So he went."
Her face still expressed incredulous astonishment.
"His name?" she demanded, awaiting the answer with parted lips, and widely-open eyes.
"Father Gervaise," said the Knight.
He saw her slowly whiten, till scarce a vestige of colour remained.
For some minutes she spoke no word; both sat silent, Hugh ruefully facing his risks, and inclined to repent of his honesty.
At length: "And who told you this tale," she said; "this tale of the love of Father Gervaise for a young maid, half his age?"
"Symon of Worcester told it me, three nights ago."
"How came the Bishop to know so strange and so secret a thing? And knowing it, how came he to tell it to you?"
"He had it from Father Gervaise himself. He told it to me, because his remembrance of the sacrifice made so long ago in order that the full completion of wifehood and motherhood might be thine, had always inclined him to a wistful regret over thy choice of the monastic life, with its resultant celibacy; leading him, from the first, to espouse and further my cause. In wedding us to-day, methinks the Bishop felt he was at last securing the consummation of the noble renunciation made so long ago by Father Gervaise."
With a growing dread at his heart, Hugh watched the increasing pallor of her face, the hard line of the lips which, but a few moments before, had parted in such gentle sweetness.
"Alas!" he exclaimed, "I should not have told thee! With my clumsy desire to keep nothing from thee, I have spoilt an hour which else might have been so perfect."
"You did well to tell me, dear Knight of mine," she said, a ripple of tenderness passing across her stern face, as swiftly and gently as the breeze stirs a cornfield. "Nor is there anything in this world so perfect as the truth. If the truth opened an abyss which plunged me into hell, I would sooner know it, than attempt to enter Paradise across the flimsy fabric of a lie!"
Her voice, as she uttered these words, had in it the ring which was wont to petrify wrong-doers of the feebler kind among her nuns.
"Dear Knight, had the Bishop not forestalled me when he named his palfrey, truly I might have found a fine new name for you! But now, I pray you of your kindness, leave me alone with my fallen image for a little space, that I may gather up the fragments and give them decent burial."
With which her courage broke. She stretched her clasped hands across the table and laid her head upon her arms.
Despair seized the Knight as he stood helpless, looking down upon that proud head laid low.
He longed to lay his hand upon the golden softness of her hair.
But her shoulders shook with a hard, tearless sob, and the Knight fled from the arbour.
As he paced the lawn, on which the Bishop had promenaded the evening before, Hugh cursed his rashness in speaking; yet knew, in the heart of his heart, that he could not have done otherwise. Mora's words concerning truth, gave him a background of comfort. Even so had he ever himself felt. But would it prove that his honesty had indeed shattered his chances of happiness, and hers?
A new name? . . . What might it be? . . . What the mischief, had the
Bishop named his palfrey? . . . Sheba? Nay, that was the ass!
Solomon? Nay, that was the mare! Yet—how came a mare to be named
Solomon?
In his disturbed mental state it irritated him unreasonably that a mare should be called after a king with seven hundred wives! Then he remembered "black, but comely," and arrived at the right name, Shulamite. Of course! Not Solomon but Shulamite. He had read that love-poem of the unnamed Eastern shepherd, with the Rabbi in the mountain fastness. The Rabbi had pointed out that the word used in that description signified "sunburned." The lovely Shulamite maiden, exposed to the Eastern sun while tending her kids and keeping the vineyards, had tanned a ruddy brown, beside which the daughters of Jerusalem, enclosed in King Solomon's scented harem, looked pale as wilting lilies. Remembering the glossy coat of the black mare, Hugh wondered, with a momentary sense of merriment, whether the Bishop supposed the maiden of the "Song of Songs" to have been an Ethiopian.
Then he remembered "Iconoklastes." Yes, surely! The palfrey was Iconoklastes. Now wherefore gave the Bishop such a name to his white palfrey?
Striding blindly about the lawn, of a sudden the Knight stepped full on to a flower-bed. At once he seemed to hear the Bishop's gentle voice: "I named him Iconoklastes because he trampled to ruin some flower-beds on which I spent much time and care, and of which I was inordinately fond."
Ah! . . . That was it! The destroyer of fair bloom and blossom, of buds of promise; of the loveliness of a tended garden. . . . Was this then what he seemed to Mora? He, who had forced her to yield to the insistence of his love? . . . In her chaste Convent cell, she could have remained true to this Ideal love of her girlhood: and, now that she knew it to have been called forth by love, could have received, mentally, its full fruition. Also, in time she might have discovered the identity of the Bishop with Father Gervaise, and long years of perfect friendship might have proved a solace to their sundered hearts, had not he—the trampler upon flower-beds—rudely intervened.
And yet—Mora had been betrothed to him, her love had been his, long after Father Gervaise had left the land.
How could he win her back to be once more as she was when they parted on the castle battlements eight years before?
How could he free himself, and her, from these intangible, ecclesiastical entanglements?
He was reminded of his difficulties when he tried to walk disguised in the dress of the White Ladies, and found his stride impeded by those trailing garments. He remembered the relief of wrenching them off, and stepping clear.
Why not now take the short, quick road to mastery?
But instantly that love which seeketh not its own, the strange new sense so recently awakened in him, laid its calm touch upon his throbbing heart. Until that moment in the crypt the day before, he had loved Mora for his own delight, sought her for his own joy. Now, he knew that he could take no happiness at the cost of one pang to her.
"She must be taught not to shudder," cried the masterfulness which was his by nature.
"She must be given no cause to shudder," amended this new, loyal tenderness, which now ruled his every thought of her.
Presently, returning to the arbour, he found her seated, her elbows on the table, her chin cupped in her hands.
She had been weeping; yet her smile of welcome, as he entered, held a quality he had scarce expected.
He spoke straight to the point. It seemed the only way to step clear of immeshing trammels.
"Mora, it cuts me to the heart that, in striving to be honest with you, I have all unwittingly trampled upon those flower-beds in which you long had tended fair blossoms of memory. Also I fear this knowledge of a nobler love, makes it hard for you to contemplate life linked to a love which seems to you less able for self-sacrifice."
She gazed at him, wide-eyed, in sheer amazement.
"Dear Knight," she said, "true, I am disillusioned, but not in aught that concerns you. You trampled on no flower-beds of mine. My shattered idol is the image of one whom I, with deepest reverence, loved, as a nun might love her Guardian Angel. To learn that he loved me as a man loves a woman, and that he had to flee before that love, lest it should harm me and himself, changes the hallowed memory of years. This morning, three names stood to me for all that is highest, noblest, best: Father Gervaise, Symon of Worcester, and Hugh d'Argent. Now, the Bishop and yourself alone are left. Fail me not, Hugh, or I shall be bereft indeed."
The Knight laughed, joyously. The relief at his heart demanded that much vent. "Then, if I failed thee, Mora, there would be but the Bishop?"
"There would be but the Bishop."
"I will not fail thee, my belovèd. And I fear I must have put the matter clumsily, concerning Father Gervaise. As the Bishop told it to me, there was naught that was not noble. It seemed to me it should be sweet to the heart of a woman to be so loved."
"Hush," she said, sternly. "You know not the heart of a nun."
He did not reason further. It was enough for him to know that the shattered image she had buried was not the ideal of his love and hers, or the hope of future happiness together.
"Time flies, dear Heart," he said. "May I speak to thee of immediate plans?"
"I listen," she answered.
Hugh stood in the entrance, among the yellow roses, leaning against the doorpost, his arms folded on his breast, his feet crossed.
At once she was reminded of the scene in her cell, when he had taken up that attitude while still garbed as a nun, and she had said: "I know you for a man," and, in her heart had added: "And a stronger man, surely, than Mary Seraphine's Cousin Wilfred!"
"We ride on to-day," said the Knight, "if you feel able for a few hours in the saddle, to the next stage in our journey. It is a hostel in the forest; a poor kind of place, I fear; but there is one good room where you can be made comfortable, with Mistress Deborah. I shall sleep on the hay, without, amongst my men. Some must keep guard all night. We ride through wild parts to reach our destination."
He paused. He could not hold on to the matter of fact tones in which he had started. When he spoke again, his voice was low and very tender.
"Mora, I am taking thee first to thine own home; to the place where, long years ago, we loved and parted. There, all is as it was. Thy people who loved thee and had fled, have been found and brought back. Seven days of journeying should bring us there. I have sent men on before, to arrange for each night's lodging, and make sure that all is right. Arrived at thine own castle, Mora, we shall be within three hours' ride of mine—that home to which I hope to bring thee. Until we enter there, my wife, although this morning most truly wed, we will count ourselves but betrothed. Once in thy home, it shall be left to thine own choice to come to mine when and how thou wilt. The step now taken—that of leaving the Cloister and coming to me—had perforce to be done quickly, if done at all. But, now it is safely accomplished, there is no further need for haste. The wings of my swift desire shall be dipt to suit thine inclination."
Hugh paused, looking upon her with a half-wistful smile. She made no answer; so presently he continued.
"I have planned that, each day, Mistress Deborah, with the baggage and a good escort, shall go by the most direct route, and the best road. Thus thou and I will be free to ride as we will, visiting places we have known of old and which it may please thee to see again. To-day we can ride out by Kenilworth, and so on our first stage northward. Martin will take Mistress Deborah on a pillion behind him. Should she weary of travelling so, she can have a seat in the cart with the baggage. But they tell me she travels bravely on horseback. We will send them on ahead of us, and on arrival all will be in readiness for thee. If this weather holds, we shall ride each day through a world of sunshine and beauty; and each day's close, my wife, will find us one day nearer home. Does this please thee? Have I thought of all?"
Rising, she came and stood beside him in the entrance to the arbour.
A golden rose, dipping from above, rested against her hair.
Her eyes were soft with tears.
"So perfectly have you thought and planned, dear faithful Knight, that I think our blessèd Lady must have guided you. As we ride out into the sunshine, I shall grow used to the great world once more; and you will have patience and will teach me things I have perhaps forgot."
She hesitated; half put out her hands; but his not meeting them, folded them on her breast.
"Hugh, it seems hard that I should clip your splendid wings; but—oh, Hugh! Think you the heart of a nun can ever become again as the heart of other women?"
"Heaven forbid!" said the Knight, fervently, thinking of Eleanor and
Alfrida.
And, as leaving the arbour they walked together over the lawn, she smiled, remembering, how that morning the Bishop had answered the same question in precisely the same words. Whatever Father Gervaise might have said, the Bishop and the Knight were agreed!
Yet she wished, somewhat wistfully, that this most dear and loyal
Knight had taken her hands when she held them out.
She would have liked to feel the strong clasp of his upon them.
Possibly our Lady, who knoweth the heart of a woman, had guided the
Knight in this matter also.