St. Margaret wasn't always a saint, you must know: in her youth
she was very much the reverse. She had a very cruel stepmother, who
worried her to death, [189] and gave her work she was unequal to do.
One day her stepmother had sent her out to tie up bundles of hay. As
she was so engaged a Count came by, and he stopped to look at her,
for she was rarely beautiful. [190]
'What hard work for such pretty little hands,' he began by saying;
and after many tender words had been exchanged he proposed that she
should go home with him, where her life would be the reverse of the
suffering existence she had now to endure.
Margaret consented at once, for her stepmother, besides working her
hard, had neglected to form her to proper sentiments of virtue.
The count took her to his villa at a place called Monte Porciana,
a good way from Cortona. Here her life was indeed a contrast to what
it had been at home at Cortona. Instead of having to work, she had
plenty of servants to wait upon her; her dress and her food were
all in the greatest luxury, and she was supplied with everything
she wished for. Sometimes as she went to the theatre, decked out
in her gay attire, and knowing that she was a scandal to all, she
would say in mirth and wantonness, 'Who knows whether one day I may
not be stuck up there on high in the churches, like some of those
saints? As strange things have happened ere now!' But she only said
it in wantonness. So she went on enjoying life, and when their son
was born there was nothing more she desired.
In the midst of this gay existence, word was brought her one evening
that the Count, who had gone out that morning full of health and
spirits to the hunt, had been overtaken and assassinated, and as
all had been afraid to pursue the murderers, they knew not where his
body was.
Margaret was thrown into a frenzy [191] at the news; her fine clothing
and her rich fare gave her little pleasure now. All amusement and
frivolity were put out of sight; and she sat on her sofa and stared
before her, for she had no heart to turn to anything that could
distract her thoughts from her great loss. Then one day--it might have
been three days after--a favourite dog belonging to the count came
limping and whining up to her. Margaret rose immediately; she knew
that the dog would take her to the count's body, and she rose up and
motioned to him to go: and the dog, all glad to return to his master,
ran on before. All the household were too much afraid of the assassins
to venture in their way, so Margaret went forth alone. It was a long
rough way; but the dog ran on, and Margaret kept on as well as her
broken strength would admit. At last they came to a brake where the
dog stopped, and now whined no longer but howled piteously.
Margaret knew that they had reached the object of their search, and it
was indeed here the assassins had hidden the body. Moving away with
her own hands the leaves and branches with which they had covered
it over, the fearful sight of her lover's mangled body lay before
her. The condition into which the wounds and the lapse of time had
brought it was more than she could bear to look at, and she swooned
away on the spot.
When she came to herself all the course of her thoughts was
changed. She saw what her life had been; the sense of the scandal she
had given was more to her even than her own distracting grief. As
the most terrible penance she could think of, she resolved to go
back to her stepmother and endure her hard treatment, sharpened by
the invectives with which she knew it would now be seasoned.
Taking with her her son, she went to her, therefore, and with the
greatest submission of manner entreated to be readmitted. But not
even this would the stepmother grant her, but drove her away from
the door. She then turned to her father, but he was bound to say the
same as his wife. She now saw there was one misery worse than harsh
treatment, and that was penury--starvation, not only for herself,
but her child.
Little she cared what became of her, but for the child something must
be done. What did she do? She went and put on a sackcloth dress, [192]
tied about the waist with a rope, and she went to the church at the
high mass time; and when mass was over she stood on the altar step,
and told all the people she was Margaret of Cortona, who had given
so much scandal, and now was come to show her contrition for it.
Her sufferings had gone up before God. As she spoke her confession
so humbly before all the people, the count's mother rose from her
seat, and, coming up to her, threw her handkerchief over her head
[193]--for she was bareheaded--and led her away to her home.
She would only accept her hospitality on condition of being allowed
to live in a little room apart, with no more furniture than a nun's
cell. Here she lived twelve years of penance, till her boy was old
enough to choose his state in life. He elected to be a Dominican,
and afterwards became a Preacher of the Apostolic Palace; and she
entered a Franciscan convent, where she spent ten more years of
penance, till God took her to Himself.
She cut off all her long hair when she went to live in her cell
at the house of the count's mother, that she might not again be an
occasion of sin to anyone. And after that, when she found she was
still a subject of human admiration, she cut off her lips, that no
one might admire her again. [194]