At the moment when the chronicle opens, he had turned back, in his questing, to the broad realm of Holy Church. Holy Church said that she sat, acquiescent, wise, at the door through which such things came. In fact, she said, she had the keys. Montjoy, being no fool, saw, indeed, how much of the portress was lewd and drunken. But for all that surely she had been given the keys! Given them once, surely she could not have parted with them! He rebuked the notion. And truly he knew much that was good of the portress, much that was very good. He thought, “I will better serve Religion”—conceiving that to be Holy Church’s high name. But he was bewildered between high name and low name, between the saint there in the portress and the evident harlot. Between the goodness and the evil!
He was led by a longing for union and he only knew that it was not for old unions that once had contented. He could have those at any time if he willed them again. But he knew that they would not content. The longing was larger and demanded a larger reciprocal. He was knight-errant now in the interior land of romance, out to find that reciprocal, visited with gleams from some presence, but wandering often, turning in mistake now here, now there.
Supper ended. Abbot Mark had come to the castle for counsel, or at the least, for intelligent sympathy. It was too general in the hall. The withdrawing room would be better. They went to this, but still there was play, with a fire for a cool June evening, with lights and musical instruments, Dame Elenore’s hands upon the virginals, young Isabel’s fresh voice singing with a young knight, man of Montjoy’s, two gentlewomen serving Lady Alice murmuring over a tapestry frame,—and the Abbot soothed, happy, in the great chair near Dame Elenore. Prior Matthew shook himself. “Business! Business!” was his true motto and inner word. He spoke in a low voice to the Abbot, deferentially, for the Priory deduced from the Abbey, but monitory also, perhaps even minatory. Abbot and Prior alike knew that when it came to business the Prior had the head.
The Abbot sighed and turned from Dame Elenore to Montjoy who was brooding, chin on fist, eyes on fire. “We must ride early to Silver Cross, Montjoy! Counsel is good, they say, taken in the warm, still hour before bedtime.”
Dame Elenore lifted her hands from the virginals. Montjoy’s wife spoke to her women and, the song being done, to her daughter. “We will go, my lord. Give you good night! Your blessing, Lord Abbot!” She kneeled for it, as did young Isabel and Dame Elenore and the two gentlewomen and the young knight and Gilbert the page. The Abbot blessed; the women and the young men took their departure. Montjoy and Silver Cross and Westforest had the room and the fire and through the window the view, did they choose to regard it, of the town roofs and twisting, crack-like streets, and of the river, now under the gleaming of a rising moon, and a line that was the bridge, and a mound on the farther side crowned by a twinkling constellation, lights of Saint Leofric’s monks. The Abbot did so look, walking heavily the room and pausing by the window. It was with peevish face and gesture that he returned to the great chair “Do you hear each day, Montjoy, louder news of what Hugh is doing?”
“Is it Prior Hugh, or is it Saint Leofric? If it be Hugh, I say that long since we knew that he was ambitious and glory-covetous. If it be the saint—how shall you war against him?”
“If Saint Willebrod would arise to war—”
“Would they war—two saints?”
“Would he not come to aid of St. Robert, St. Bernard, St. Stephen and Abbey of Silver Cross? Just as Montjoy would draw blade for his suzerain? Chivalry, loyalty and fealty must hold in heaven,” said the Abbot.