All this the Abbot did. This also he did—his crowning piece. He caused her to wear round her waist a girdle made of bright steel in which was a staple. To the staple he fixed a fine steel chain—a toy, a mimicry of prisons, but in fact a chain—and the other end of a chain was fixed to a monk's wrist. The chain was fine and flexible, it was long, it could go through the keyhole—and did—but it was a chain. Wherever the girl went, to the garden, to table, to music, to bed, abroad, or to Mass, she was chained to a monk and a monk to her. The Abbot Richard rested on the seventh day, contemplating his labours with infinite relish. It seemed to him that this was to be politic with an air. So far as he might he did everything in that manner.
Isoult bore the burden much as she had borne the thwackings of the charcoal-burners, with ingrained patience. Seriously, one only cross fretted her—the loss of her ring. This indeed cried desertion upon her. Prosper had never seemed so far, nor his love so faint and ill-assured. It would seem that kindness really killed her by drugging her spirit as with anodyne. As she had fallen at Gracedieu, so she fell now into a languid habit where tears swam in flood about the lids of her eyes, where the eyes were too heavy for clear sight and the very blood sluggish with sorrow. She grew pale again, hollow-eyed, diaphanous—a prism for an unearthly ray. Her beauty took on its elfin guise; she walked a ghost. Night and day she felt for the ring; though she knew it was not there, her hand was always in her vest, her bosom always numb and cold. Sometimes her urgent need was more than she could bear. A trembling took her, an access of trembling which she could not check. At such times, if others were about her, she would sit vacant and speechless, smiling faintly for courtesy; her eyes would brim over, the great drops fall unchecked. There would be no sobbing, very little catching of the breath. The well of misery would fill and overflow, gently and smoothly irresistible. Then the shaking would cease and the fount be dry for a season. So she grew more a spirit and less a maid; her eyes waxed larger, and the pupils whelmed the grey in jet.
The people of Malbank frankly took her for a saint. Martyrs, virgins, and such rare birds do not hop in every cage; but what more reasonable than that the famous Abbot of Saint Thorn should catch one in his own springes? Those who maintained that the chained white creature, who knelt folded at the Mass, or on a white palfrey rode out on the heath guarded by two monks, was the stormy girl who had kept swine about the middens, Matt's bad daughter Isoult la Desirous, those were leagued with the devil and his imps, who would not see a saint if all heaven walked the earth.
The report fell in excellently with the Abbot's calculation. No one believed in the Isoult fable save Mald, whom the girl had seen once or twice, and himself; every one talked rather of the Chained Virgin of Saint Thorn. She became an object of pilgrimage. The Abbot grew to call her chamber the feretory; the faithful gave alms, particularly the seamen from Wanmouth. Then others came to behold, more to his liking, proposing barter. She was observed of the Lord of Hartlepe, the young Lord of Brokenbridge, the Lord of Courthope Saint James; of the Baron of Starning and Parrox, also, from the East Demesne. This Baron Malise, thin and stooping, having Prosper's quick eyes without his easy lordship over all who met them, and Prosper's high voice twisted querulous, came to view his young brother's wife. She pleased, but the price did not please. He and the Abbot haggled over the dowry; Malise, as obstinate as Prosper, would not budge. So they haggled. Finally came Galors de Born, Lord of Hauterive and many other places in the north, not to be denied.
CHAPTER XXXI
'ENTRA PER ME'
When Galors overshot his mark in Thornyhold he flew very wide. It is well known there are no roads. Thornyhold is but the beginning of the densest patch of timber in all the forest. Malbank is your nearest habitation; Spenshaw, Heckaby, Dunsholt Thicket, Hartshold, Deerleap are forest names, not names of the necessities of men. You may wander a month if you choose, telling one green hollow from another; or you may go to Holy Thorn at Malbank, or endure unto Wanmouth and the sea. If you were Galors and needed counsel you would not choose the wood; naturally you would avoid Malbank. There would remain to you Wanmouth.
Galors went to Wanmouth. It was the Countess's country of course; but his disguise was good enough. People read the arms and hailed a le Gai or one of that house. It was at Wanmouth that he learned what he wanted. Malise, after one of his interminable chafferings with the Abbot Richard, took it on his way to the east.
"My Lord Baron of Starning," said the Vice-Admiral of the port, "we have had a friend of your house here a week or more."
"Eh, eh!" said Malise, feeling his pocket, "what does the rogue want with his friendship? I'm as poor as a rat. Who is he?"