The White Ladies of Worcester: A Romance of the Twelfth Century. Barclay Florence Louisa
Antony," began the Reverend Mother, smiling.
"Dear Antony—" she said, and laughed aloud.
Then she placed her hand beneath the old woman's arm, and gently raised her. "Mistakes arise so easily," she said. "With the best of intentions, we all sometimes make mistakes. There is nothing to forgive, my Antony."
"I am old, and dim, and stupid," said the lay-sister, humbly; "but I have begged of our sweet Lady to sharpen the old wits of Mary Antony."
After which statement, made in a voice of humble penitence, Mary Antony, unseen by the thankful Prioress, did give a knowing wink with the eye next to the Madonna. Our blessèd Lady smiled. The sweet Babe looked merry. The Prioress rose, a great light of relief illumining her weary face.
"Let us to bed, dear Antony; then, with the dawn of a new day we shall all arise with hearts refreshed and wits more keen. So now—God rest thee."
Left alone, the Prioress knelt long in prayer before the shrine of the Madonna. Once, she reached out her right hand to the empty space where Hugh had knelt, striving to feel remembrance of his strong clasp.
At length she sought her couch. But sleep refused to come, and presently she crept back in the white moonlight, and kneeling pressed her lips to the stone on which Hugh had kneeled; then fled, in shame that our Lady should see such weakness; and dared not glance toward the shadowy form of the dead Christ, crucified. For with the coming of Love to seek her, Life had come; and where Life enters, Death is put to flight; even as before the triumphant march of the rising sun, darkness and shadows flee away.
Yet, even then, our Lady gently smiled, and the Babe on her knees looked merry.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE CATHEDRAL CRYPT
On the day following, in the afternoon, shortly before the hour of Vespers, a stretcher was carried through the streets of Worcester, by four men-at-arms wearing the livery of Sir Hugh d'Argent.
Beside it walked the Knight, with bent head, his eyes upon the ground.
The body of the man upon the stretcher was covered by a fine linen sheet, over which lay a blue cloak, richly embroidered with silver. His head was swathed in a bandage of many folds, partially concealing the face.
The little procession passed through the Precincts; then entered the Cathedral by the great door leading into the nave.
Here a monk stood, taking careful note of all who passed in or out of the building. As the stretcher approached, he stepped forward with hand upraised.
There was a pause in the measured tramp of the bearers' feet.
The Knight lifted his eyes, and seeing the monk barring the way, he drew forth a parchment and tendered it.
"I have the leave of the Lord Bishop, good father," he said, "to carry this man upon the stretcher daily into the crypt, and there to let him lie before the shrine of Saint Oswald, during the hour of Vespers; from which daily pilgrimage and prayer, we hope a great recovery and restoration."
At sight of the Lord Bishop's signature and seal, the monk made deep obeisance, and hastened to call the Sacristan, bidding him attend the Knight on his passage to the crypt and give him every facility in placing the sick man there where he might most conveniently lie before the holy altar of the blessèd Saint Oswald.
So presently, the stretcher being safely deposited, the men-at-arms stood each against a pillar, and the Knight folded back the coverings, in order that the man who lay beneath, might have sight of the altar and the shrine.
As the Knight stood gazing through the vista of many columns, he found the old Sacristan standing at his elbow.
"Most worshipful Knight," said the old man, with deference, "our Lord Bishop's mandate supersedes all rules. Were it not so, it would be my duty to clear the crypt before Vespers. See you that stairway yonder, beneath the arch? Not many minutes hence, up those steps will pass the holy nuns from the Convent of the White Ladies at Whytstone—noble ladies all, and of great repute for saintliness. Daily they come to Vespers by a secret way; entering the crypt, they pass across to a winding stair in the wall, and so arrive at a gallery above the choir, from which they can, unseen, hear the chanting of the monks. I must to my duties above. Will you undertake, Sir Knight, that your men go not nigh where the White Ladies pass, nor in any way molest them?"
"None shall stir hand or foot, as they pass, nor in any way molest them," said the Knight.
Hugh d'Argent was kneeling before the altar, his folded hands resting upon the cross on the hilt of his sword, when the faint sound of a key turning in a distant lock, caught his ear.
Then up the steps and across the crypt passed, in silent procession, the White Ladies of Worcester.
There was something ghostly and awe-inspiring about those veiled figures, moving noiselessly among the pillars in the dimly-lighted crypt; then vanishing, one by one, up the winding stairway in the wall.
The Knight did not stir. He stayed upon his knees, his hands clasped upon his sword-hilt; but he followed each silent figure with his eyes.
The last had barely disappeared from view when, from above, came the solemn chanting of monks and choristers.
This harmony, descending from above, seemed to uplift the soul all the more readily, because the sacred words and noble sounds reached the listener, unhampered by association with the personalities, either youthful or ponderous, of the singers. All that was of the earth remained unseen; while that which was so near akin to heaven, entered the listening ear.
Kneeling in lowly reverence with bowed head, the Knight found himself wondering whether the ascending sounds reached that distant gallery in the clerestory where the White Ladies knelt, as greatly softened, sweetened, and enriched, as they now came stealing down into the crypt. Were the hearts of those veiled worshippers also lifted heavenward; or—being already above the music—did the ascending voices rather tend to draw them down to earth?
Upon which the Knight fell to meditating as to whether that which is higher always uplifts; whereas that which is lower tends to debase. Certainly the upward look betokens hope and joy; while the downward casting of the eye, is sign of sorrow and despondency.
"Levavi oculos meos in montes"—chanted the monks, in the choir above.
He certainly looked high when he lifted the eyes of his insistent desire to the Prioress of the White Ladies. So high did he lift them, and so unattainable was she, that most men would say he might as well ask the silvery moon, sailing across the firmament, to come down and be his bride!
He had held her high, in her maiden loveliness and purity. But now that he had found her, a noble woman, matured, ripened by sorrow rather than hardened, yet firm in her determination to die to the world, to deny self, crucify the flesh, and resist the Devil—he felt indeed that she walked among the stars.
Yet he could not bring himself to regard her as unattainable. It had ever been his firm belief that a man could win any woman upon whom he wholly set his heart—always supposing that no other man had already won her. And this woman had been his own betrothed, when treachery intervened and sundered them. Yet that did not now count for much.
He had left a girl; he had come back to find a woman. That woman had infinitely more to give; but it would be infinitely more difficult to persuade her to give it.
At the close of their interview in her cell, the day before, all hope had left him. But later, as they paced together in the darkness, hope had revived.
The strange isolation in which they then found themselves—between locked doors a mile apart, earth above, earth beneath, earth all around them, they two alone, entombed yet vividly conscious of glowing life—had brought her nearer to him; and when at last the moment of parting arrived and again he faced it as final, there had come—all unheralded—the sudden wonder of her surrender.
True, she had afterwards withdrawn herself; true, she had sent him from her; true, he had gone, without a word. But that was because no promise could have been so binding, as that silent embrace.
He had gone from her on