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 the impulse of the sweetness of obeying
instantly her slightest wish; buoyed up by the certainty that no
Convent walls could long divide lips which had met and clung with such
a passion of mutual need.
That evening when, after much adventure, he at length gained the
streets of the city, he had trodden them with the mien of a victor.
That night he had slept as he had not slept since the hour when his
whole life had been embittered by a lying letter and a traitorous
tongue.
But morning, alas, had brought its doubts; noon, its dark
uncertainties; and as the hour of Vespers drew near, he had realised,
with the helpless misery of despair, that it was madness to expect the
Prioress of the White Ladies to break her vows, leave her Nunnery, and
fly with him to Warwick.
Yet he carried out his plan, and kept to his undertaking, though here,
in the calm atmosphere of the crypt, holy chanting descending from
above, the remembrance still with him of the aloofness of those stately
white figures gliding between the pillars in the distance, he faced the
madness of his hopes, and the mournful prospect of a life of loneliness.
Presently he arose, crossed the crypt, and took up his position behind
a pillar to the right of the exit from the winding stair.
The chanting ceased. Vespers were over.
He heard the sound of soft footsteps drawing nearer.
The White Ladies were coming.
They came.
The Knight was not kept long in suspense. The Prioress walked first.
Her face was hidden, but her height and carriage revealed her to her
lover. She looked neither to right nor left but, turning away from the
pillar behind which the Knight stood concealed, crossed to the steps
leading down to the subterranean way, and so passed swiftly out of
sight.
The Knight stood motionless until all had appeared, and had vanished
once more from view.
One, tall but ungainly, crooked of body, and doubtless short of vision,
missed her way among the columns and passed perilously near to the
Knight. With his long arm, he could have clasped her. How old Antony
would have chuckled, could she but have known! "Sister Mary Rebecca
embraced by the Knight of the Bloody Vest? Nay then; the Saints
forbid!"
The stretcher, borne by four men-at-arms, passed out from the Cathedral.
The Knight walked beside it, with bent head, and eyes upon the ground.
As it passed through the Precincts, the Lord Bishop himself rode out on
his white palfrey, on his way to the Nunnery at Whytstone.
The Knight, being downhearted, did not lift his eyes.
The Bishop looked, kindly, upon the stretcher and upon the Knight's
dark face.
The Bishop had known Hugh d'Argent as a boy.
He grieved to see him thus in sorrow.
Yet the Bishop smiled as he rode on.
Perhaps he did not put much faith in the efficacy of relics, for so
heavily bandaged a broken head as that upon the stretcher.
For there was a whimsical tenderness about the Bishop's smile.