William, Lord of Montjoy, was ignorant of what machinations might be
in progress up the Vale of Wander. The Abbot had said, “Would he be
helpful? It is for the glory of Silver Cross church, which, truly, is
for him his lady whom he must serve!”
The Prior shook his head. “No! No more than that monk himself! Let him
think naught save that there is holiness there!”
Abbot Mark drew groaning breath. “There was--there is--there shall
be--!”
Montjoy, in his castle yard, played for exercise at buffets with the
squire Ralph, then turned to castle wall, and with his arms resting
upon stone parapet, looked downward and outward, gargoyle-wise. But he
was not such; he was living knight, struggling to reach Heavenly City.
It was snowing. Montjoy, wrapped in mantle, drew hood over head and let
it snow. The flakes fell thickly, large and white. Castle rock dropped
black to castle hill that was whitening. Hill met Middle Forest that
piled toward hill. The roofs were high, the roofs were steep. They were
brown, they were black, they were whitening. Where were chimneys rose
feathers of smoke. These were houses full and well-to-do. There were
chimneys unfeathered.
Sweet--sweet, deep--deep, went Saint Ethelred’s bell. Sweet--sweet,
deep--deep, the bell of the Poor Clares. Sweet--sweet, deep--deep, the
bell of the small Carmelite house. The snow was a veil, but he saw the
river and the whitening bridge. Across, Saint Leofric’s mount might
hardly be seen, might be guessed, as it were--cloud friary, cloud
church, cloud houses around, all set in a cloud. Thick, thick fell the
snow in great flakes.
Sweet--sweet, deep--deep rang the bells. He thought he could hear
Saint Leofric’s. On a clear day when the wind was right, he could hear
from this wall, far and thin, the bells of Silver Cross. To-day it
could not be for this ever-passing, ever-present wall in white motion.
Yet he imaged the hearing. Silver Cross--Westforest up Wander--Saint
Leofric--Saint Ethelred--Poor Clares--Carmelite--they rang, and it was
Christmas season.
Montjoy’s dark and serious eyes grew misty. “We strive and
buffet--cross joys, cross wills--yet, O true Lord, every bell is sweet!
Even Saint Leofric’s--” He gripped with energy the stone coping. “But
it is so despite thee, Hugh, despite thy lying that one day shall choke
thee!”
Silver Cross bells swung to the inner sense. They chimed, they rang
unearthly clear and sweet, they rang clean. “Faulty is the time, and
Silver Cross has been faulty--but never and never and never has it been
nor will it be branded thief--as you, O Hugh, have branded that which
was given you in charge!”
The snow fell, the snow fell. The roofs whitened, whitened. The smoke
feathers that had been pale against dark now were dark against pale.
The river and the bridge began to be hidden.
There was a high-roofed house with more than one great chimney stack
out of which rose and waved full and plumy smoke feathers. Down chimney
great burning logs, flame wrapped and purring, made the house warm, it
being the house of the merchant Eustace Bettany. Alongside stood his
warehouse and his shop, and one passed by doors from the one into the
other. His house was clean, well-fitted. To-day, it being Christmas
tide, he had shut shop and given holiday, and was gone, he and his
wife and two daughters, to a kinsman’s house to dine and talk around
kinsman’s fire, and listen to some music from viols and rebecs. His
son, young Thomas, had turned wilful and would not go. Nor would he,
this day, go to seek a jolly crew in some tavern. He often enough
did that, but to-day his mood was indoors. Having house to himself,
he piled on wood and summoned John Cobb. “You’ve on your mad dreaming
cap!” said the latter.
Thomas plied the ash stick. “If I have not a play to go to, must I not
make the play? I cannot sit still. I must run, dance, fly. I would a
witch would come down chimney and show me how!”
John Cobb crossed himself.
The fire burned, the fire sang. The snow fell, large flakes, white,
down coming with an intimate, cool grace.
Somerville rode into town. He rode musingly, wrapped in a great grey
mantle, with a wide, grey, stiffened felt hat, keeping snow from him
much like a shed roof. He had ridden from manor to Silver Cross where
he had been entertained. Now he rode on to Middle Forest, and he rode
in a deep study. Certain muscles twitched in his odd, brown face. Upon
setting out he had not meant to go farther than Silver Cross. He hardly
knew why he should ride on down Wander. Perhaps he might think that he
wanted time to think. But below consciousness decisions were already
made, actions acted. That was what drew the muscles about mouth and
eyes and, sitting in his wrist, turned his big bay horse down Wander,
not up. He might think that he was thinking, but old life was acting
after old fashion. He rode through falling snow, and he rode not in the
mood of one night at Morgen Fay’s, but in a pleasanter, brisker mood.
He felt amused, speculative, genial, triumphant. It was well to find
human nature through and through the ancient, pleasant, faulty pattern!
He did not dislike it--marry, no! It strengthened, buttressed, warmed
and pleased his sense of himself to feel warp and woof so continuous.
Silver Cross had this day withdrawn all claim to that debated good mile
of land. It had acknowledged Somerville’s right. Parchment crackled in
his pocket, parchment with Abbot Mark’s name and seal at bottom. Land
at last in his hand. Why? Somerville knew why. “I am bought for the
miracles.” Laughter played over his quick face.
Prior Matthew had “chanced” to be at Silver Cross. “He is the puppet
master!”
Nothing had been divulged as to form of puppets, or that there were
puppets, or for that matter miracles. Certainly nothing was said of
purchase. All had been warm, friendly, with an air of Yule. “But when
there are miracles--believe and cry aloud that it is so! Never bring
cold to wither them, snow to cover them! Be a friend, and in our camp!”
Somerville laughed. After an old habit, he hummed, he sang as he rode:
“Turn thy coat--
Turn thy coat,
Having the land,
Having the land.
So few know when they are bought!
But all are bought,
Few, few escape!”
He looked through snow to castle rock. “Ha, Montjoy, do you escape?”
For a moment a hand, as it were, wiped life from his face, leaving it
haggard and empty. But witches trooped at whistle, sardonic mirth came
back. “We buy and we are bought! Why not--if the world is Pennyworth
Fair? If little good is had, so is little harm. It’s an empty barn,
Montjoy, where the wind whistles!
“Little good will come,
Little harm will come
Of Abbot Mark,
Of Silver Cross--
While away the day with plucking at the lute’s three strings!”
He rode through Middle Forest High Street and coming to the door of
Master Eustace Bettany, dismounted and knocked. John Cobb let him
in, and Thomas Bettany was most glad to see him. But he would not
tarry. He had stopped in passing to ask Thomas to make him a visit at
Somerville Hall. Thomas was blithe to say yes,--if his father could
spare him.
“Oh, he will spare you!” said Somerville intelligently.
His sworn follower laughed a little. In truth Somerville was important.
Merchants spared sons to visit knights.
He mounted the big bay, he rode on down High Street. Thomas and John
Cobb watched from the door dwindling horse and man, taken into the snow
world and hidden there. Then they shook from their coats the flakes big
as guilders and returned to the fire. “Now you’ve got your pleasure and
your play! Did your witch bring him though?”
“No!” His blue eyes regarded John Cobb with a bright and distant look.
“I’ll take you with me, John, for my man--”
The snow fell. The roof, the streets all were white. Sound wrapped
itself in wool, in far time. The folk in the ways, the carts and
wagons, the strong horses, went in a wafted veil. It witched them,
witched the place and hour. As the snow fell fewer and fewer were
abroad. Somerville also heard the bells ring.
Morgen Fay’s house watched the head of the old wall grow white, and
the bridge grow white, and the flakes melt in the river. A dusky plume
waved from the chimney. Below was burning wood, and Morgen Fay moved
from it to window and from window back again.
She was glad to see Somerville. “If ever I needed counsel, I need it
now! What is Ailsa? She cannot give it, nor can Tony! What are the
others who come here? They have not thy wit, or they are too young or
too old. Montjoy has wiped me from his dear soul!”
“Your eyes are red. Were you weeping for that?”
“No! And I wept not much. It does no good. My cousin, Father Edwin, is
dead.”
“I knew not that he ailed!”
“Ay, he is dead. And there comes to me warning that Father Edmund will
preach against me in Saint Ethelred and at town cross.”
“Can there arrive great harm? Middle Forest likes thee pretty well!”
“Oh, once, I know, I might have sailed out of storm--”
“Why not again?”
“With the miracles--with Saint Leofric blazing there? Middle Forest is
become good! I tell you I see before me stoning and misery!”
He studied the fire. He was inclined to agree with her that her hour
had struck. “Well! You have had years of down-lined nest--of merry
life!”
“So wind will blow less cold and stones bruise less? Merry life? Oh,
aye, sometimes!”
“What will you do to escape?”
“Marry, tell me! Tell me, Rob!”
She came and put her hand upon his breast. She felt him draw slightly
back from her. She stood away herself and her dark eyes pierced him;
she sighed. Presently she said, “Thou, too! thou, too! Well, out of
common decency, counsel me!”
He cogitated. “While there is yet time you might get secretly away--to
London or elsewhere.”
“Oh, I want not to go! This is home. I should miss my river and my
garden.”
“Montjoy?”
“In old days he might--because that I look like that Isabel who looked
like Our Lady in the Silver Cross picture. But now I know not that he
would shield, nor that he could. He hath put himself awry with all the
folk.”
Somerville laughed. “Aye, I have seen that! Let him speak now against
rising zeal at his peril! Out upon him will rush the hive!”
He sat regarding her with very bright eyes. “Man lives to learn! Until
this moment I knew not that of Montjoy, nor that you are like--as now I
see you are like--that picture! Why did you never tell me that?”
“I know not. I have some grace--like a little star, far, far away!”
He regarded her meditatively. “You are a mixture! A hand shakes the
phial until the dregs are on top.”
“I wish they were skimmed off and thrown away. But all of me might then
be gone, oh, all of me! Tell me what I am to do, Robert!”
Leaning back in his chair, he looked now at her and now at the fire.
“Priest against priest! Father Edwin dead. Seek afield. None at the
Carmelites, no! Saint Leofric gives no help. Silver Cross--”
“Oh, Abbot Mark must trot his mule beside Zeal-for-goodness! Not else
can he keep apace with the time!” Morgen Fay burst into laughter. She
laughed, and then she sat silent with her head bowed upon the settle’s
arm.
“If he preaches--Father Edmund--at town cross, best were it that you
disappear.”
“Lock house against better days and vanish--aye, where?”
“There’s many a place.”
“Aye, far away. I do not will to go far away. May not I have true love
beside all the untrue?”
“Poor wretch! It is nigh smothered!” said Somerville and laughed; after
which he sat in silence and all manner of odd and mocking lights played
in his face. “Well, disappear up Wander!”
“How far up?”
“Well, not as far as Somerville Hall. That may not be. But there is the
ruined farm that bears toward Silver Cross. Put on country dress and
darken your face, and David and his wife who live there will take you
in--Alice or Joan. I will speak to them. You may bide there until we
are less good.”
There was silence. A red coal fell with a silken sound. Out of window
all was white and still. “I despair,” said Morgen Fay. “Not for this
danger nor for that but I--I myself. I despair.”
“If there were any way to buy Silver Cross--” He sat and looked into
the fire.
The snow fell thick, thick and white. It hid the bridge, it hid Saint
Leofric, it hid the castle of Montjoy. It wrapped the town. Dusk came
to help it. Snow and night wrapped the time and place.
In the night it ceased to snow and cleared. Winter stars and purple
dawn and saffron day. The sun sprang up and beneath him lay a diamond
earth. Somerville, riding up Wander, pulled his hat over eyes, so
dazzling were the light shafts.
Out from the road that turned aside to Silver Cross came upon his mule
the Prior of Westforest, attended by two monks. There was greeting.
“Ride on with me to Westforest, Sir Robert!”
They rode together and when they came to Westforest Somerville
dismounted and went with Prior Matthew into his parlour.