THE WOMAN AND HER CONSCIENCE
"For Hugh?" said the Prioress. And then again, in low tones of
incredulous amazement, "For Hugh! What know you of Hugh, my lord?"
The Bishop looked steadfastly at the Prioress, and replied with
exceeding gravity and earnestness:
"I know that in breaking your solemn troth to him, you are breaking a
very noble heart; and that in leaving his home desolate, you are
robbing him not only of his happiness but also of his faith. Men are
apt to rate our holy religion, not by its theories, but by the way in
which it causeth us to act in our dealings with them. If you condemn
Hugh to sit beside his hearth, through the long years, a lonely,
childless man, you take the Madonna from his home; if you take your
love from him, I greatly fear lest you should also rob him of his
belief in the love of God. I do not say that these things should be
so; I say that we must face the fact that thus they are. And
remember--between a man and woman of noble birth, each with a stainless
escutcheon, each believing the other to be the soul of honour, a broken
troth is no light matter."
"I did not break my troth," said the Prioress, "until I believed that
Hugh had broken his. I had suffered sore anguish of heart and
humiliation of spirit, over the news of his marriage with his cousin
Alfrida, ere I resolved to renounce the world and enter the cloister."
"But Hugh did not wed his cousin, nor any other woman," said the
Bishop. "He was true to you in every thought and act, even after he
also had passed through sore anguish of heart by reason of your
supposed marriage with another suitor."
"I learned the truth but a few days since," said the Prioress. "For
seven long years I thought Hugh false to me. For seven long years I
believed him the husband of another woman, and schooled myself to
forget every memory of past tenderness."
"You were both deceived," said the Bishop. "You have both passed
through deep waters. You each owe it to the other to make all possible
reparation."
"For seven holy years," said the Prioress, firmly, "I have been the
bride of Christ."
"Do you love Hugh?" asked the Bishop.
There was silence in the chamber.
The Prioress desired, most fervently, to take her stand as one dead to
all earthly loves and desires. Yet each time she opened her lips to
reply, a fresh picture appeared in the mirror of her mental vision, and
closed them.
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.