From the gold of the wheat harvest to the picking of red apples no great
time passes, yet in those few weeks the people began to scoff openly at
the healing powers of Denise. She had been brought in with such quaint
pomp and ceremony, with such singing, and such a show of blossom on the
boughs, that folk had looked for a wonderful fruiting, and for an
especial blessedness that should show itself in each man’s house.
Denise, poor wench, had come into the wilds of life, to find primitive
things dragging her beautiful altruism into ruins. She had lost her
wings and could no longer soar, because of the earthliness that grew
more apparent to her day by day. Everything that she attempted failed
with her, and faith in her own power dwindled out of her heart. Long ago
she had noticed the prophetic change in Dom Silvius’s attitude. He was
suspicious, grieved, hesitatory, always hoping for some lucky miracle,
some splendid coincidence that might fire the beacon of his imaginings.
He had boasted a little of this Virgin Saint out of the woods, and the
eyes of some of the Brethren were beginning to twinkle.
One sunny day early in October Dom Silvius went down to the stews to
fish. There happened to be some of the younger monks there, and Guimar
the hosteler, a long, lean quiz of a man whom Silvius hated.
“Brother,” said he to the almoner. “Have you come to fish?”
Dom Silvius answered the question by settling his stool with great
deliberation at the edge of the pond. Guimar glanced at the rest.
“My Brothers,” he said. “See, here is Silvius come a-fishing. Let us
kneel and pray for him, and perchance his saint may catch a miracle!”
They all laughed at the joke, all save Silvius, who bit his lips. And
from that moment his pride began to work like a slow poison in him,
filling him with a hatred of Denise.
Once only, and that in August, Father Grimbald had come stalking up the
hill to Virgin’s Croft, when the people were busy with the harvest, and
there were none to see his coming. What he said to Denise, and she to
him, no man knew, for Grimbald held his peace concerning it. But Denise
wept when he had gone, bitter, impassioned tears that welled up out of
her heart. Grimbald’s brow was heavy with a thunder cloud of thought as
he trudged home to Goldspur over the hills. He opened and closed his
great fists as he went, as though yearning to smite something, or to
take an enemy by the throat. He had been unable to learn much from
Denise, save that she seemed unhappy, and that she had left Goldspur
because of the violence of the times. Grimbald had his own suspicions,
but speak them he could not, though he was troubled within himself for
Denise’s sake. He knew that it had not been a matter of vainglory with
her, a desire to be flattered by the worship of a wider world. Oswald’s
tale of the Devil on the Black Horse loomed largely in the background of
Grimbald’s mind. Denise had hidden something from him. Of that Grimbald
felt assured.
The burgher folk of Battle and the people on the Abbey lands began to
have their grievances against Denise, grumbling with superstitious
pettiness because their hopes had profited so little. There was a
multitude of small things remembered against her, for of what use was a
holy woman if her sanctity brought no blessings. Grubs had attacked the
apples; why had not Denise prevented that? The sheep had been worried
with the “fly”; again Denise had been besought to pray against the pest.
Many of the wells had run dry with the hot summer; what was the use of a
saint who could not bring back water?
There were many more things quoted against her.
Mulgar the carrier had brought a horse cursed with “wind sucking” and
the staggers. A holy woman should be able to conjure such trifles, and
Mulgar had brought three pennies as an offering. The horse had died on
the road next day.
Gilbert the miller was plagued with rats. And the rats prospered, even
though he had brought a dead buck rat to Denise, and besought her to
curse the vermin.
Olivia, the goldsmith’s wife, brought a girl with a purple birth-mark on
her cheek. She desired Denise to touch the stain that it might
disappear. The birth-mark remained for all to see.
A woman in child-bed sent for Denise’s blessing. The child was
still-born the very same night.
Well might Denise feel that the virtue had gone out of her, that the
people were beginning to mock, and that her prayers were as so much
chaff. The bitterness and the humiliation were not of her own seeking.
They had set her upon a pinnacle, crowded about her open-mouthed, ready
for the blessings she should bestow. Her white garments, and her burning
aureole of hair had dazzled them, and the power of her beauty remained
with her still. But the mystery was passing; she had profited none of
the people; her prayers had burst like bubbles in the air. And since the
human heart is ever a fickle thing, ready to scoff and sneer, and think
itself cheated when its own fancies fall to the ground, the very
children began to catch the spirit of their elders, and to throw
surreptitious stones at Denise’s door. They invented a game, too, that
they called the Silly Saint, in which one of the girls wore a halo of
straw and attempted to work wonders which were never wonderful, till the
audience rose and rolled her in the grass. No one chided them for such
indecent blasphemy. Even Dom Silvius was ready to wash his hands of
Denise.
There were more sinister whisperings in the air as the autumn drew on
and merged into the winter. Bridget, the smith’s wife, whose boy had
died on Denise’s knees, had set her tongue and her spite against the
saint. The woman had been very bitter against Denise all through the
summer, laughing maliciously over her failures, and nodding her head
with the air of “I could have told you so.” When neighbours had still
seemed credulous, she had put her tongue in her cheek, and mocked.
Bridget and some other women were spreading their linen on the grass one
windy October day, and their talk turned upon Denise. As women will,
they spoke of the things that had been noised abroad of late. There were
some that said that Denise was no saint, that she was no better than
they themselves were, far worse in fact because of her vows. It had been
told that a strange knight had kept a vigil near her cell, and the women
laughed, as only women of a kind can.
Bridget, the smith’s wife, was the bitterest of them all, because of her
dead child, and the spite that she had nurtured against Denise. And as
they spread their linen on the grass she began to tease the women, and
to tantalise them with all manner of cryptic nods, and sneers, and
insinuations. The end of it all was that much of the linen blew hither
and thither because the women were so eager to listen to Bridget, and
forgot to weigh the sheets and body gear down with stones.
Bridget was the fat hen with the worm in her beak, and they all crowded
about her as though to thieve it. But all she did was to laugh and to
smooth her frock with her two hands.
The women set up a great cackling, and then ran to and fro to catch the
linen that was blowing in the wind.
“Blessed Martin,” said one, “when the Abbot hears of it!”
“A mighty poor miracle for Dom Silvius to boast of! I could do as well
myself.”