The White Ladies of Worcester: A Romance of the Twelfth Century

She saw herself, with hand outstretched, clasping Hugh's as they kneeled together before the shrine of the Madonna. She could feel the rush of pulsing life flow from his hand to the palm of hers, and so upward to her poor numbed heart, making it beat its wings like a caged bird.

She felt again the strength and comfort of the strong arm on which she leaned, as slowly through the darkness she and Hugh paced in silence, side by side.

She remembered each time when obedience had seemed strangely sweet, and she had loved the manly abruptness of his commands.

She saw Hugh, in the ring of yellow light cast by the lantern, kneeling at her feet. She felt his hair, thick and soft, between her fingers.

And then—she remembered that shuddering sob, and the instant breaking down of every barrier. He was hers, to comfort; she was his, to soothe his pain. Then—the exquisite moment of yielding; the relief of the clasp of his strong arms; the passing away of the suffering of long years, as she felt his lips on hers, and surrendered to the hunger of his kiss.

Then—one last picture—when loyal to her wish, felt rather than expressed, he had freed her, and passed, without further word or touch, up into that dim grey light like a pearly dawn at sea—passed, and been lost to view; she saw herself left in utter loneliness, the heavy door locked by her own turning of the key, he on one side, she on the other, for ever; she saw herself lying beneath the ground, in darkness and desolation, her face in the damp dust where his feet had stood.

"Do you love Hugh?" again demanded the Bishop.

And the Prioress lifted eyes full of suffering, reproach, and pain, but also full of courage and truth, to his face, and answered simply: "Alas, my lord, I do."

The silence thereafter following was tense with conflict. The Bishop turned his eyes to the figure of the Redeemer upon the cross, self-sacrifice personified, while the Prioress mastered her emotion.

Then: "'Love never faileth,'" said the Bishop gently.

But the Prioress had regained command over herself, and the gentle words were to her a challenge. She donned, forthwith, the breastplate of holy resolve, and drew her sword.

"My Lord Bishop, you have wrung from me a confession of my love; but in so doing, you have wrung from me a confession of sin. A nun may not yield to such love as Hugh d'Argent still desires to win from me. With long hours of prayer and vigil, have I sought to purge my soul from the stain of a weak yielding—even for 'a moment'—to the masterful insistence of this man, who forced himself, by the subterfuge of a sacrilegious masquerade, into the sacred precincts of our Nunnery. I know not whom he bribed"—continued the Prioress, flashing an indignant glance of suspicion at the Bishop.

"'Love thinking no evil,'" murmured Symon of Worcester.

"But I do know, that somebody in high authority must have connived at his plotting, or he could not have found himself alone in the crypt at the hour of Vespers, in such wise as to assume our dress and, mingling with the returning procession, gain entrance to the cloisters. And somebody must still be aiding and abetting his plans, or he could not be, as he himself told me he would be, daily in the crypt alone, during the hour when we pass to and from the clerestory. It angers me, my lord, to think that one who should, in this, be on my side, taketh part against me."

"'Is not easily provoked,'" quoted the Bishop.

"In fact I am tempted, my lord," said the Prioress, rising to her feet, tall and indignant, "I am almost tempted, my Lord Bishop, to forget the reverence which I owe to your high office–"

"'Doth not behave itself unseemly,'" murmured Symon of Worcester, putting on his biretta.

The Prioress turned her back upon the Bishop, and walked over to the window. She was so angry that she felt the tears stinging beneath her eyelids; yet at the same time she experienced a most incongruous desire to kneel down beside that beautiful and dignified figure, rest her head against the Bishop's knees, and pour out the cruel tale of conflicts, uncertainties and strivings, temptations and hard-won victories, which, had lately made up the sum of her nights and days. He had been her trusted friend and counsellor during all these years. Yet now she knew him arrayed against her, and she feared him more than she feared Hugh. Hugh wrestled with her feelings; and, on the plane of the senses, she knew her will would triumph. But the Bishop wrestled with her mentality; and behind his calm gentleness was a strength of intellect which, if she yielded at all, would seize and hold her, as steel fingers in a velvet glove.

She returned to her seat, composed but determined.

"Reverend Father," she said, "I pray you to pardon my too swift indignation. To you I look to aid me in this time of difficulty. I grieve for the sorrow and disappointment to a brave and noble knight, a loyal lover, and a most faithful heart. But I cannot reward faith with un-faith. If I broke my sacred vows in order to give myself to him, I should not bring a blessing to his home. Better an empty hearth than a hearth where broods a curse. Besides, we never could live down the scandal caused. I should be anathema to all. The Pope himself would doubtless excommunicate us. It would mean endless sorrow for me, and danger for Hugh. On these grounds, alone, it cannot be."

Then the Bishop drew from his sash a folded sheet of vellum.

"My daughter," he said, "when Hugh came to me with his grievous tale of treachery and loss, he refused to give me the name of the woman he sought, saying only that he believed she was to be found among the White Ladies of Worcester. When I asked her name he answered: 'Nay, I guard her name, as I would guard mine honour. If I fail to win her back; if she withhold herself from me, so that I ride away alone; then must I ride away leaving no shadow of reproach on her fair fame. Her name will be for ever in my heart,' said Hugh, 'but no word of mine shall have left it, in the mind of any man, linked with a broken troth or a forsaken lover.' I tell you this, my daughter, lest you should misjudge a very loyal knight.

"But no true lover was ever a diplomat. Hugh had not talked long with me, before you stood clearly revealed. A few careful questions settled the matter, beyond a doubt. Whereupon, my dear Prioress–"

The Bishop paused. It became suddenly difficult to proceed. The clear eyes of the Prioress were upon him.

"Whereupon, my lord?"

"Whereupon I realised—an early dream of mine seemed promised a possible fulfilment. I knew Hugh as a lad— It is a veritable passion with me that all things should attain unto their full perfection— In short, I sent a messenger to Rome, bearing a careful account of the whole matter, in a private letter from myself to His Holiness the Pope. Last evening, my messenger returned, bringing a letter from the Holy Father, with this enclosed."

The Bishop held out the folded document.

The Prioress rose, took it from him, and unfolded it.

As she read the opening lines, the amazement on her face quickly gathered into a frown.

"What!" she said. "The name and rank I resigned on entering this Order! Who dares to write or speak of me as 'Mora, Countess of Norelle'?"

"Merely His Holiness the Pope, and the Bishop of Worcester," said the Bishop meekly, in an undertone, not meaning the Prioress to hear; and, indeed, she ignored this answer, her words having been an angry ejaculation, rather than a question.

But there was worse to come.

"Dispensation!" exclaimed the Prioress.

"Absolution!" she cried, a little further on.

And at last, reading rapidly, in tones of uncontrollable anger and indignation: "'Empowers Symon, Lord Bishop of Worcester, or any priest he may appoint, to unite in the holy sacrament of marriage the Knight-Crusader, Hugh d'Argent, and Mora de Norelle, sometime Prioress of the White Ladies of Worcester.' Sometime Prioress? In very truth, they have dared so to write it! SOMETIME Prioress! It will be well they should understand she is Prioress NOW—not some time or any time, but NOW and HERE!"

She turned upon the Bishop.

"My lord, the Church seems to be bringing its powers to bear on the side of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, leaving a woman and her conscience to stand alone and battle unaided with the grim forces arrayed against her. But you shall see that she knows how to deal with any weapon of the adversary which happens to fall into her hands."

Upon which the Prioress rent the mandate from top to bottom, then across and again across; flung the pieces upon the floor, and set her foot upon them.

"Thus I answer," she cried, "your attempt, my lord, to induce the Pope to release me from vows which I hold to be eternally sacred and binding. And if you are bent upon divorcing a nun from her Heavenly Union, and making her to become the chattel of a man, you must seek her elsewhere than in the Convent of the White Ladies of Worcester, my Lord Bishop!"

So spoke the angry Prioress, making the quiet chamber to ring with her scorn and indignation.

The Bishop had made no attempt to prevent the tearing of the document. When she flung it upon the floor, placing her foot upon the fragments, he merely looked at them regretfully, and then back upon her face, back into those eyes which flamed on him in furious indignation. And in his own there was a look so sorrowful, so deeply wounded, and yet withal so tenderly understanding, that it quelled and calmed the anger of the Prioress.

Her eyes fell slowly, from the serene sadness of that quiet face, to the silver cross, studded with oriental amethysts, at his breast; to the sash girdling his purple cassock; to the hand resting on his knees; to the stone in his ring, from which the rich colour had faded, leaving it pale and clear, like a large teardrop on the Bishop's finger; to his shoes, with their strange Italian buckles; then along the floor to her own angry foot, treading upon the torn fragments of that precious document, procured, at such pains and cost, from His Holiness at Rome.

Then, suddenly, the Prioress faltered, weakened, fell upon her knees, with a despairing cry, clasped her hands upon the Bishop's knees, and laid her forehead upon them.

"Alas," she sobbed, "what have I done! In my pride and arrogance, I have spoken ill to you, my lord, who have ever shewn me most considerate kindness; and in a moment of ill-judged resentment, I have committed sacrilege against the Holy Father, rending the deed which bears his signature. Alas, woe is me! In striving to do right, I have done most grievous wrong; in seeking not to sin, lo, I have sinned beyond belief!"

The Prioress wept, her head upon her hands, clasped and resting upon the Bishop's knees.

Symon of Worcester laid his hand very gently upon that bowed head, and as he did so his eyes sought again the figure of the Christ upon the cross. The Prioress would have been startled indeed, had she lifted her head and seen those eyes—heretofore shrewd, searching, kindly, or twinkling and gay,—now full of an unfathomable pain. But, sobbing with her face hidden, the Prioress was conscious only of her own sufferings.

Presently the Bishop began to speak.

"We did not mean to overrule your judgment, or to force your inclination, my daughter. If we appear to have done so, the blame is mine alone. This mandate is drawn up entirely along the lines of my suggestion, owing to my influence with His Holiness, and based upon particulars furnished by me. Now let me read to you the private letter from the Holy Father to myself, giving further important conditions."

The Bishop drew forth and unfolded the letter from Rome, and very slowly, that each syllable might carry weight, he read it aloud.

As the gracious and kindly words fell upon the Prioress's ear, commanding that no undue pressure should be brought to bear upon her, and insisting that it must be entirely by her own wish, if she resigned her office and availed herself of this dispensation from her vows, she felt humbled to the dust at thought of her own violence, and of the injustice of her angry words.

Her weeping became so heartbroken, that the Bishop again laid his left hand, with kindly comforting touch, upon her bowed head.

As he read the Pope's most particular injunctions as to the manner in which she must leave the Nunnery and take her place in the world once more, so as to prevent any public scandal, she fell silent from sheer astonishment, holding her breath to listen to the final clause empowering the Bishop to announce within the Convent, when her absence became known, that she had been moved on by him, secretly, with the knowledge and approval of the Pope, to a place where she was required for higher service.

"Higher service," said the Prioress, her face still hidden. "Higher service? Can it be that the Holy Father really speaks of the return to earthly love and marriage, the pleasures of the world, and the joys of home life, as 'higher service'?"

The grief, the utter disillusion, the dismayed question in her tone, moved the Bishop to compunction.

"Mine was the phrase, to begin with, my daughter," he admitted. "I used it to the Holy Father, and I confess that, in using it, I did mean to convey that which, as you well know. I have long believed, that wifehood and motherhood, if worthily performed, may rank higher in the Divine regard than vows of celibacy. But, in adopting the expression, the Holy Father, we may rest assured, had no thought of undervaluing the monastic life, or the high position within it to which you have attained. I should rather take it that he was merely accepting my assurance that the new vocation to which you were called would, in your particular case, be higher service."

The Prioress, lifting her head, looked long into the Bishop's face, without making reply.

Her eyes were drowned in tears; dark shadows lay beneath them. Yet the light of a high resolve, unconquerable within her, shone through this veil of sorrow, as when the sun, behind it, breaks through the mist, victorious, chasing by its clear beams the baffling fog.

Seeing that look, the Bishop knew, of a sudden, that he had failed; that the Knight had failed; that the all-powerful pronouncement from the Vatican had failed.

The woman and her conscience held the field.

Having conquered her own love, having mastered her own natural yearning for her lover, she would overcome with ease all other assailants.

In two days' time Hugh would ride away alone. Unless a miracle happened, Mora would not be with him.

The Bishop faced defeat as he looked into those clear eyes, fearless even in their sorrowful humility.

"Oh, child," he said, "you love Hugh! Can you let him ride forth alone, accompanied only by the grim spectres of unfaith and of despair? His hope, his faith, his love, all centre in you. Another Prioress can be found for this Nunnery. No other bride can be found for Hugh d'Argent. He will have his own betrothed, or none."

Still kneeling, the Prioress threw back her head, looking upward, with clasped hands.

"Reverend Father," she said, "I will not go to the man I love, trailing broken vows, like chains, behind me. There could be no harmony in life's music. Whene'er I moved, where'er I trod, I should hear the constant clanking of those chains. No man can set me free from vows made to God. But–"

The Prioress paused, looking past the Bishop at the gracious figure of the Madonna. She had remembered, of a sudden, how Hugh had knelt there, saying: "Blessèd Virgin . . . help this woman of mine to understand that if she break her troth to me, holding herself from me, now, when I am come to claim her, she sends me out to an empty life, to a hearth beside which no woman will sit, to a home forever desolate."

"But?" said the Bishop, leaning forward. "Yes, my daughter? But?"

"But if our blessèd Lady herself vouchsafed me a clear sign that my first duty is to Hugh, if she absolved me from my vows, making it evident that God's will for me is that, leaving the Cloister, I should wed Hugh and dwell with him in his home; then I would strive to bring myself to do this thing. But I can take release from none save from our Lord, to Whom those vows were made, or from our Lady, who knoweth the heart of a woman, and whose grace hath been with me all through the strivings and conflicts of the years that are past."

The Bishop sighed. "Alas," he said; "alas, poor Hugh!"

For that our Lady should vouchsafe a clear sign, would have to be a miracle; and, though he would not have admitted it to the Prioress, the Bishop believed, in his secret heart, that the age of miracles was past.

One so fixed in her determination, so persistent in her assertion, so loud in her asseveration, would scarce be likely to hear the inward whisperings of Divine suggestion.

Therefore, should our Lady intervene with clear guidance, that intervention must be miraculous. And the Bishop sighing, said: "Alas, poor Hugh!"

His eye fell upon the fragments of rent vellum on the floor. He held out his hand.

The Prioress gathered up the fragments, and placed them in the Bishop's outstretched hand.

"Alas, my lord," she said, "you were witness of my grievous sin in thus rending the gracious message of His Holiness. Will it please you to appoint me a penance, if such an act can indeed be expiated?"

"The sin, my daughter, as I will presently explain, is scarcely so great as you think it. But, such as it is, it arose from a lack of calmness and of that mental equipoise which sails unruffled through a sea of contradiction. The irritability which results in displays of sudden temper is so foreign to your nature that it points to your having passed through a time of very special strain, both mental and physical; probably overlong vigils and fastings, while you wrestled with this anxious problem upon which so much, in the future, depends.

"As you ask me for penance, I will give you two: one which will set right your ill-considered action; the other which will help to remedy the cause of that action.

"The first is, that you place these fragments together and, taking a fresh piece of vellum, make a careful copy of this writing which you destroyed.

"The second is that, in order to regain the usual equipoise of your mental attitude, you ride to-day, for an hour, in the river meadow. My white palfrey, Iconoklastes, shall be in the courtyard at noon. Yesterday, my daughter, you rode for pleasure. To-day you will ride for penance; and incidentally"—an irrepressible little smile crept round the corners of the Bishop's mouth, and twinkled in his eyes—"incidentally, my daughter, you will work off a certain stiffness from which you must be suffering, after the unwonted exercise. Ah me!" said the Bishop, "that is ever the Divine method. Punishments should be remedial, as well as deterrent. There is much stiffness of mind of which we must be rid before we can stoop to the portal of God's 'whosoever' and, passing through the narrow gate, enter the Kingdom of Heaven as little children."

The Bishop rose, and giving his hand to the Prioress raised her to her feet.

"My lord," she said, "as ever you are most kind to me. Yet I fear you have been too lenient for my own peace of mind. To have destroyed in anger the mandate of His Holiness–"

"Nay, my daughter," said the Bishop. "The mandate of His Holiness, inscribed upon parchment, from which hangs the great seal of the Vatican, is safely placed among my most precious documents. You have but destroyed the result of an hour's careful work. I rose betimes this morning to make this copy. I should not have allowed you to tear it, had not the writing been my own. But I took pains to reproduce exactly the peculiar style of lettering they use in Rome, and you will do the same in your copy."

Turning, the Bishop knelt for a few moments in prayer before the Madonna. He could not have explained why, but somehow the only hope for Hugh seemed to be connected with this spot.

Yet it was hardly reassuring that, when he lifted grave and anxious eyes, our Lady gently smiled, and the sweet Babe looked merry.

Rising, the Bishop turned, with unwonted sternness, to the Prioress.

"Remember," he said, "Hugh rides away to-morrow night; rides away, never to return."

Her steadfast eyes did not falter.

"He had better have ridden away five days ago, my lord. He had my answer, and I bade him go. By staying he has but prolonged his suspense and my pain."

"Yes," said the Bishop slowly, "he had better have ridden away; or, better still, have never come upon this fruitless quest."

He moved toward the door.

The Prioress reached it before him.

With her hand upon the latch: "Your blessing, Reverend Father," entreated the Prioress, rather breathlessly.

"Benedicite," said the Bishop, with uplifted fingers, but with eyes averted; and passed out.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE WHITE STONE

Old Mary Antony was at the gate, when the Bishop rode out from the courtyard.

Thrusting the porteress aside, she pressed forward, standing with anxious face uplifted, as the Bishop approached.

He reined in Icon, and, bending from the saddle, murmured: "Take care of her, Sister Antony. I have left her in some distress."

"Hath she decided aright?" whispered the old lay-sister.

"She always decides aright," said the Bishop. "But she is so made that she will thrust happiness from her with both hands unless our Lady should herself offer it, by vision or revelation. I could wish thy gay little Knight of the Bloody Vest might indeed fly with her to his nest and teach her a few sweet lessons, in the green privacy of some leafy paradise. But I tell thee too much, worthy Mother. Keep a silent tongue in that shrewd old head of thine. Minister to her; and send word to me if I am needed. Benedicite."

An hour later, mounted upon his black mare, Shulamite, the Bishop rode to the high ground, on the north-east, above the city, from whence he could look down upon the river meadow.

As he had done on the previous day, he watched the Prioress riding upon Icon.

Once she put the horse to so sudden and swift a gallop that the Bishop, watching from afar, reined back Shulamite almost on to her haunches, in a sudden fear that Icon was about to leap into the stream.

For an hour the Prioress rode, with flying veil, white on the white steed; a fair marble group, quickened into motion.

Then, that penance being duly performed, she vanished through the archway.

Turning Shulamite, Symon of Worcester rode slowly down the hill, passed southward, and entered the city by Friar's Gate; and so to the Palace, where Hugh d'Argent waited.

The Bishop led him, through a postern, into the garden; and there on a wide lawn, out of earshot of any possible listeners, the Bishop and the Knight walked up and down in earnest conversation.

At length: "To-morrow, in the early morn," said the Knight, "I send her tire-woman on to Warwick, with all her effects, keeping back only the riding suit. Should she elect to come, we must be free to ride without drawing rein. Even so we shall reach Warwick only something before midnight."

"She tore it up and planted her foot upon it," remarked the Bishop.

"I will not give up hope," said the Knight.

"Nothing short of a miracle, my son, will change her mind, or move her from her fixed resolve."

"Then our Lady will work a miracle," declared the Knight bravely. "I prayed 'Send her to me!' and our blessèd Lady smiled."

"A sculptured smile, dear lad, is ever there. Had you prayed 'Hold her from me!' our Lady would equally have smiled."

"Nay," said the Knight; "I keep my trust in prayer."

They paused at the parapet overhanging the river.

"I was successful," said the Knight, "in dealing with Eustace, her nephew. There will be no need to apply to the King. The ambition was his mother's. Now Eleanor is dead, he cares not for the Castle. Next month he weds an heiress, with large estates, and has no wish to lay claim to Mora's home. All is now once more as it was when she left it. Her own people are in charge. I plan to take her there when we leave Warwick, riding northward by easy stages."

The Bishop, stooping, picked up a smooth, white stone, and flung it into the river. It fell with a splash, and sank. The water closed upon it. It had vanished instantly from view.