SWEET BONDAGE
SPRING that year made battle royal with cold winds. Together they fought
for the mastery. Yet where they gained in strength she gained in
insistence. Driven away she yet returned again and again, till at length
they were weary of the fight, and fled before her to return no more.
The victory hers she reigned supreme and triumphant, flung her snowy
mantle over fruit trees, kissed to full awakening the flowers in copse
and field, roused to chorus of warblings the birds’ song in the hedges.
Knowing her reign late and soon to pass to that of summer she lost no
moment of it once established. The south and west winds, now her
subjects, sang softly among the trees and grasses at her bidding. The
sun, king of all, crowned his reigning queen.
Peregrine sat in the castle garden at the foot of the white sundial
which stood at the edge of the velvet grass sward. Around him were
flower-beds brilliant with colour. Here were masses of small purple
campanula covering the stone border between flower-bed and flagged path;
clumps of anemones many-hued, named for St. Brigid; narcissi golden-eyed
trembling in the soft air; forget-me-nots blue as the sky or Our Lady’s
robe; scillas deeper dyed; tulips chalice-shaped, gold, crimson, and
white,—a very riot of colour, gay as the sweet mad call of spring.
Beyond lay the park, the trees clean and fresh in their vesture of new
leaves; and beyond that again the open spaces of the moorland.
Peregrine, looking thereat, saw its freedom, remembered his own. A
prisoner now, he laughed, yet without bitterness. Ten short weeks to
change a man, yet he found himself changed.
Peregrine set himself to think. Yet this he found no easy task. He could
see himself as he was ten weeks agone, fancied the mental image as
clear-cut as a cameo, a good likeness withal. He could see himself as he
was now, the outlines dimmed truly, blurred by some curious mist of
thought, yet sufficiently clear to know that here was a different man
from the sharp-cut cameo. To the change, the manner of its happening, he
found it no easy task to bring clear thought. Once a freeman scorning
all thought of thraldom, now a prisoner exulting in his bonds. That the
bonds which held him differed from those that had held his sire he was
very certain. Custom had bound his sire, he had his own word for it.
Here was no custom to hold him, but bonds infinitely sweeter, light yet
inflexible as iron. He would not be free of them if he could.
What was he? A prisoner in very sooth. Yet more,—a Jester who failed to
jest; a man seeking for art, for guile, wherein to hide his heart, yet
clothing it ever in truth, though truth carved to poetic fancy.
“Dogs are we!” so had cried his sire. No dog was he to fawn and cringe
at the foot of his mistress, but in very sooth a man kneeling in
adoration at his lady’s shrine. And as he was, so she accepted him, this
Jester who could not jest. She saw the man beneath the fool, and
stooping from her heights recognized his manhood. Even so might the
Gracious Mother of God bend from Heaven to a suppliant son of earth.
There was no hint of blasphemy in his thought; in his very manhood he
was humble.
You see in him a man who had had no thought for women. Two only had held
his love,—his mother, at whose knee in childhood he had prayed, and that
other Mother to whom his prayers had been addressed, “_Sancta Maria,
Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ._”
Therefore he brought to his lady a very clean heart, a very humble
heart, one which in all childlikeness accepted her favours, though warm
with the strength of a man’s devotion it sang a man’s praises in her
honour. You must not think that he lifted his eyes one whit higher than
the hem of her robe; she was to him a very queen, himself the humblest
of her subjects. Yet he knew himself now as man, and no fool, his
adoration clean and strong, no hint of the fawner in his attitude.
That the knowledge brought him joy you may well believe. His heart was
attuned to the joyous note of spring. Sun, the flowering earth, the soft
winds, all were to him but symbols of his happiness, portraying for him
his lady’s praises. Looking back on his first meeting with her he still
felt a flush of shame that he had momentarily doubted her truth, had
spoken words that held a note of irony. For that he struck his breast,
cried “_Mea culpa_,” saw himself the fool his garb set forth. Truth
incarnate in woman, so he saw her now, loftily enshrined beside his
mother, the shrine I think very near to that of the Mother of God.
Kneeling afar at Mass he saw her bend her head in adoration, rejoiced to
think they were at one in this great Act of Worship. The whiteness of
his love we may well believe lifted him nearer God.
Having, then, some hint of his mood you will know that Peregrine sitting
by the sundial found the morning very fair. Having mused, and finding it
hard to say by what precise steps he had reached his present goal, he
turned from musing, content merely that here he was. Light of heart he
looked across the park, saw the shadows lying still and blue beneath the
trees, saw the purple outline of the moorland, heard a lark pouring
forth exuberant song from the cloudless sky.
At the further end of the grass sward, on a stone bench, Brigid was
sitting with Mary Chester. Embroidery, as their custom was, occupied
their fingers, or it would be safer to say that Mary’s were occupied
thereby. Brigid for the most part held her needle idly, her eyes more
often roving to the motionless figure by the sundial than bent upon her
work.
“Methinks,” she said suddenly, breaking a long silence, “that the Lady
Isabel favours our present Jester.” Head on one side she surveyed the
distant figure meditatively, unashamedly.
“The Lady Isabel is gracious to all,” said Mary sedately, her eyes upon
her embroidery.
“Hmm.” Brigid’s eyes twinkled. Elbow on knee, chin in cupped hand, she
cast a side-long look at Mary. “And will you be recording that small
speech at confession.”
Mary flushed. “I do not understand,” she responded.
“No?” quizzed Brigid. “Oh, Mary, methought you were a truthful woman.
And here within the space of one minute you have twice—Oh, fie upon
you!”
Mary, her lips folded upon each other, stitched at her embroidery.
“I wonder,” mused Brigid, unheeding her companion’s silence, “just what
our dear mistress intends.”
Still Mary was silent.
“You see,” pursued Brigid, “you know her, and I know her, and methinks
her present mood is dangerous for the peace of mind of our friend
yonder. Just how far will she lead him? Just how far will she let him
feel her power? Ah me, had I her looks instead of the half-hearted dower
Dame Nature has bestowed on me, methinks willy nilly the maid would
enter the field with the mistress, and should the maid gain the day I’ll
warrant the awakening would be less rude to the sleeping fool. Mary, a
word in your ear. Melikes that young man.”
Mary raised her eyes from her embroidery. “And that,” she remarked
quietly, “is the truest word you’ve spoken.”
“A true word, verily; but I crave leave to omit the superlative. Let me
show the truth of the other words, emphasise it since you hesitate to
grant it. Therefore firstly, note our knowledge of the Lady Isabel;
secondly, her mood dangerous to the peace of mind of our friend yonder;
thirdly, the awakening less rude were it left to me. And firstly,
secondly, and thirdly holds, I’ll warrant, every whit as much truth as
lastly. Hence I say again, I omit the superlative, by your leave.”
For a moment Mary was still silent. Then she spoke, her voice grave.
“You are barely charitable, Brigid; and, methinks, hardly loyal.”
Brigid shrugged her shoulders. “As for loyalty, I do not speak in this
fashion save to you. And for charity—bah! Were I to divest my speech of
all criticism methinks ’twould be as savourless as food without salt and
spices, mere pap for babes.”
Mary sighed.
“You sigh, and rightly. Mary, it angers me. Man though he is, his rôle
is but that of fool,—fool by birth, heritage, and calling. She is as
guarded from him as ever was Brunhilde from Siegfried by the ring of
fire. He knows it, and she knows it. Yet by the syren song of her she
lures him ever nearer. And, if her song continues, one day in madness he
will try to pass the barrier of flame. Her song and madness alone will
urge him to the attempt. Then the flame will burn him; and I know, yes,
I know, she will mock at his wounds.” Low and fierce Brigid spoke the
last words.
“You let imagination run away with you. You feel too deeply.” Mary’s
words were calm.
Brigid looked straight before her. “Sooner feel too deeply than have a
heart of stone. Mary, I’d sooner be dumb than lure men by the syren’s
song. I’d sooner be featureless with leprosy than drive men mad by the
fairness of my face. She is heartless as a stone image, remorseless as a
Medusa, a very vampire to—.” Brigid broke off; a sidelong glance had
shown her Mary’s face. “You are shocked? Small wonder. Truth is a very
naked lady, and if we drag her from the bottom of her well we should at
least garb her in becoming fashion. We will lower her again to the
darkness of her well, and herewith change the topic of our discourse.
Mark you, how blue the sky is, and look at the white butterfly resting
on my anemones yonder. See the quivering of its wings, the darling! ’Tis
the first I have seen this year.” Gaiety in every note of the words you
could not have imagined the passionate utterance of a moment agone.
Mary was silent, tears not far from her eyes.
“What ails you?” asked Brigid solicitously.
Mary smiled wanly. “I liked not the sight of truth,” she replied.
“Nor I,” averred Brigid. “’Twas ill to drag her from her resting-place.
Since she cannot be killed she is best hidden. Let us cry _Deo gratias_
that there is a well wherein to hide her. And you and I will dance and
smile at the edge thereof; since, verily, save for that or moping, which
is ill, we can do nothing.”
“Nothing,” echoed Mary. “Save pray,” she added a moment later, and below
her breath.
Brigid caught the words, and her eyes gave assent thereto, if not her
lips.
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