BROKEN SANCTUARY
Through the days of rain and falling leaves, when all the forest was
sodden with mist; through the dark days of winter, hushed with snow,
she stayed with the nuns, serving them meekly in whatever tasks they
set her. She was once more milk-maid and cowherd, laundress again,
still-room maid for a season, and in time (being risen so high)
tire-woman to the Lady Abbess herself. Short of profession you can get
no nearer the choir than that. It was not by her tongue that she won so
much favour--indeed she hardly spoke at all; as for pleasantness she
never showed more than the ghost of a smile. "I am in bondage," she
said to herself, "in a strange house, and no one knows what treasure I
hide in my bosom." There she kept her wedding-ring. But if she was
subdued, she was undeniably useful, and there are worse things in a
servant than to go staidly about her work with collected looks and
sober feet, to have no adventurous traffic with the men-servants about
the granges or farms, never to see nor hear what it would be
inconvenient to know--in a word, to mind her business. In time
therefore--and that not a long one as times go--her featness and
patience, added to her beauty (for it was not long before the gentler
life or the richer possession made her very handsome), won her the
regard of everybody in the house.
The Abbess, as I have told you already, took her into high favour
before Christmas was over--actually by Epiphany she could suffer no
other to dress her or be about her person.
She loved pretty maids, she said, when they were good. Isoult was both,
so the Abbess loved her. The two got to know each other, to take each
other's measure--to their reciprocal advantage. Isoult was very guarded
how she did; what she said was always impersonal, what she heard never
went further. The Abbess was pleased. She would often commend her, take
her by the chin, turn up her face and kiss her. A frequent strain of
her talk was openly against Prosper's ideas: the Abbess thought Prosper
a ridiculous youth.
"Child," she would say--and Isoult thrilled at the familiar word
(Prosper's!)--"Child, you are too good-looking to be a nun. In due
season we must find you a husband. Your knight seemed aghast at the
thought that salvation could be that way. Some fine morning the young
gentleman will sing a very different note. Meantime he is wide of the
mark. For our blessed Lord loveth not as men love (who love as they are
made), nor would He have them who are on the earth and of it do
otherwise than seek the fairest that it hath to give them. Far from
that, but He will draw eye to eye and lip to lip, so both be pure,
saying, 'Be fruitful, and plenish the earth.' But to those not so
favoured as you are He saith, 'Come, thou shalt be bride of Heaven, and
lie down in the rose-garden of the Lamb.' So each loves in her degree,
and according to the measure of her being; and it is very well that
this should be so, in order that the garners of Paradise may one day be
full."
This sort of talk, by no means strange on the old lady's part,
sometimes tempted Isoult to tell her story--that she was a wife
already. No doubt she would have done it had not a thought forborne
her. Prosper did not love her; their relations were not marital--so
much she knew as well as anybody. She would never confess her love for
him, even to Prosper himself; she could not bring herself to own that
she loved and was unloved. She thought that was a disgrace, one that
would flood her with shame and Prosper with her, as her husband though
only in name. She thought that she would rather die than utter this
secret of hers; she believed indeed that she soon would die. That was
why she never told the Abbess, and again why she made no effort nor had
any temptation to run away and find him out. It seemed to her that her
mere appearance before him would be a confession of deep shame.
But she never ceased for an hour to think of him, poor miserable. In
bed she would lie for whole watches awake, calling his name over and
over again in a whisper. Her ring grew to be a familiar, Prosper's
genius. She would take it from her bosom and hold it to her lips,
whisper broken words to it, as if she were in her husband's arms. With
the same fancy she would try to make it understand how she loved him.
That is a thing very few girls so much as know, and still fewer can
utter even to their own hearts; and so it proved with her. She was as
mute and shamefaced before the ring as before the master of the ring.
So she would sigh, put it back in its nest, and hide her face in the
pillow to cool her cheeks. At last in tears she would fall asleep. So
the days dragged.
In February, when the light drew out, when there was a smell of wet
woods in the air, when birds sang again in the brakes, and here and
there the bushes facing south budded, matters grew worse for her. She
began to be very heavy, her nightly vigils began to tell. She could not
work so well, she lagged in her movements, fell into stares and woke
with starts, blundered occasionally. She had never been a fanciful
girl, having no nurture for such flowering; but now her visions began
to be distorted. Her love became her thorn, her side one deep wound.
More and more of the night was consumed in watchings; she cried easily
and often (for any reason or no reason), and she was apt to fall faint.
So February came and went in storms, and March brought open weather,
warm winds, a carpet of flowers to the woods. This enervated, and so
aggravated her malady: the girl began to droop and lose her good looks.
In turn the Abbess, who was really fond of her, became alarmed. She
thought she was ill, and made a great pet of her. She got no better.
She was allowed her liberty to go wherever she pleased. In her trouble
she used to run into the woods, with a sort of blind sense that
physical distress would act counter to her sick soul. She would run as
fast as she could: her tears flew behind her like rain. Over and over
to herself she whispered Prosper's name as she ran--"Prosper! Prosper
le Gai! Prosper! Prosper, my lord!" and so on, just as if she were mad.
It was in the course of these distracted pranks that she discovered and
fell in love with a young pine tree, slim and straight. She thought
that it (like the ring) held the spirit of Prosper, and adored him
under its bark. She cut a heart in it with his name set in the midst
and her own beneath. Ceremony thereafter became her relief and all she
cared about. She did mystic rites before her tree (in which the ring
played a part), forgetting herself for the time. She would draw out her
ring and look at it, then kiss it. Then it must be lifted up to the
length of its chain as she had seen the priest elevate the Host at
Mass; she genuflected and fell prone in mute adoration, crying all the
time with tears streaming down her face. She was at this time like to
dissolve in tears! Without fail the mysteries ended with the _Pater
Noster_, the _Ave_, a certain Litany which the nuns had taught her, and
some gasping words of urgency to the Virgin and Saint Isidore. Love was
scourging her slender body at this time truly, and with well-pickled
rods.
On a certain day of mid-March,--it would be about the twelfth,--as she
was at these exercises about the mystic tree, a tall lady in Lincoln
green and silver furs came out of a thicket and saw Isoult, though
Isoult saw not her. She stood smiling, watching the poor devotee; then,
choosing her time, came quietly behind her, saw the heart and read the
names. This made her smile all the more, and think a little. Then she
touched Isoult on the shoulder with the effect of bringing her from
heaven to dull earth in a trice. By some instinct--she was made of
instincts, quick as a bird--the girl concealed her ring before she
turned.
"Why are you crying, child?" said this smiling lady.
"Oh ma'am!" cried the girl, half crazy and beside herself with her
troubles--"Oh, ma'am! let me tell you a little!"
She told her more than a little: she told her in fact everything--in a
torrent of words and tears--except the one thing that might have helped
her. She did not say that she was married, though short of that she
gulped the shame of loving unloved.
"Poor child!" said the lady when she had heard the sobbed confession,
"you are indeed in love. And Prosper le Gai is your lover? And you are
Isoult la Desirous? So these notches declare at least: they are yours,
I suppose?"
"Yes, indeed, ma'am," said Isoult; "but he is not my lover. He is my
master."
"Oh, of course, of course, child," the lady laughed--"they are always
the master. If we are the mistress we are lucky. And do you love him so
much, Isoult?"
"Yes, ma'am," said she.
"Silly girl, silly girl! How much do you love him now?"
"I could not tell you, ma'am."
"Could you tell him then?"
"Ah, no, no!"
"But you have told him, silly?"
"No, ma'am, indeed."
"It needs few words, you must know."
"They are more than I can dare, ma'am."
"It can be done without words at all. Come here, Isoult. Listen."
She whispered in her ear.
Isoult grew very grave. Her eyes were wide at this minute, all black,
and not a shred of colour was left in her face.
"Ah, never!" she cried.
Maulfry laughed heartily.
"You are the dearest little goose in the world!" she cried. "Come and
kiss me at once."
Isoult did as she was told. Maulfry did not let her go again.
"Now," she went on, with her arms round the girl's waist and her arch
face very near, "now you are to know, Isoult, that I am a wonderful
lady. I am friends with half the knights in the kingdom; I have armour
of my own, shields and banneroles, and halberts and swords, enough to
frighten the Countess Isabel out of her three shires. I could scare the
Abbot Richard and the Abbess Mechtild by the lift of a little finger.
Oh, I know what I am saying! It so happens that your Prosper is a great
friend of mine. I am very fond of him, and of course I must needs be
interested in what you tell me. Well now--come with me and find him.
Will you? I dare say he is not very far off."
Isoult stared at her without speaking. Doubt, wonder, longing, prayer,
quavered in her eyes as each held the throne for a time.
"He told me to stay at Gracedieu," she faltered. It seemed to her that
she was maiming her own dream.
"He tells me differently then," said Maulfry, smiling easily; "I
suppose even a lover may change his mind."
"Oh! Oh! you have seen him?
"Certainly I have seen him."
"And he says--"
"What do you think he says? Might it not be, Come and find me?"
"He is--ah, he is ill?"
"He is well."
"In danger?"
"I know of none."
"I am to leave Gracedieu and come with you, ma'am?"
"Yes. Are you afraid?"
For answer Isoult fell flat down and kissed Maulfry's silver hem.
"I will follow you to death!" she cried.
Maulfry shivered, then arched her brows.
"It will not be so bad as all that," she said. "Come then, we will find
the horses."
Isoult looked down confusedly at her grey frock.
"You little jay bird, who's to see you here among the trees? Come with
me, I'll set you strutting like a peacock before I've done with you,"
said Maulfry, in her mocking, good-humoured way.
They went together. Maulfry had hold of Isoult by the hand. Presently
they came to an open glade where there were two horses held by a
mounted groom. As soon as he saw them coming the groom got off, helped
Isoult first, then his mistress. They rode away at a quick trot down
the slope; the horses seemed to know the way.
Maulfry was in high spirits. She played a thousand tricks, and
enveigled from the brooding girl her most darling thoughts. Before they
had made their day's journey she had learnt all that she wanted to
know, or rather what she knew already. It confirmed what Galors had
told her: she believed his story. For her part Isoult, having once made
the plunge, gave her heart its way, bathed it openly in love, and was
not ashamed. To talk of Prosper more freely than she had ever dared
even to herself, to talk of loving him, of her hopes of winning him!
She seemed a winged creature as she flew through the hours of a forest
day. It pleased her, too, to think that she was being discreet in
saying nothing of her marriage. If Prosper had not thought fit to
reveal it to his accomplished friend she must keep the secret by all
means--his and hers. Instead of clouding her hopeful visions this gave
them an evening touch of mystery. It elevated her by making her an
accomplice. He and she were banded together against this all-wise lady.
No doubt she would learn it in time--in his time; and then Isoult
dreamed (and blushed as she dreamed) of another part, wherein she would
snuggle herself into his arm and whisper, "Have I not been wise?" Then
she would be kissed, and the lady would laugh to learn how she had been
outwitted by a young girl. Ah, what dreams! Isoult's wings took her a
far flight when once she had spread them to the sun.
Journeying thus they reached a road by nightfall, and a little House of
Access. To go direct to Tortsentier they should have passed this house
on the left-hand, for the tower was south-east from Gracedieu. But
there was a reason for the circuit, as for every other twist of
Maulfry's; the true path would have brought them too nearly upon that
by which Prosper and Isoult had come seeking sanctuary. Instead they
struck due east, and hit the main road which runs from High March to
Market Basing; then by going south for another day they would win
Tortsentier. Isoult, of course, as a born woodlander would know the
whereabouts of Maulfry's dwelling from any side but the north. She was
of South Morgraunt, and therefore knew nothing of the north or middle
forest. All this Maulfry had calculated. At the House of Access the
girl was actually a day's journey nearer Prosper than she had been at
the convent, but she knew nothing of it. Consequently her night's rest
refreshed her, waking dreams stayed the night, and left traces of their
rosy flames in her cheeks next morning. Maulfry, waking first, looked
at her as she lay pillowing her cheek on her arm, with her wild hair
spread behind her like a dark cloud. Maulfry, I say, looked at her.
"You are a little beauty, my dear," she thought to herself. "Countess
or bastard, you are a little beauty. And there is countess in your
blood somewhere, I'll take an oath. Hands and feet, neck and head, tell
the story. There was love and a young countess and a hot-brained
troubadour went to the making of you, my little lady. A ditch-full of
witches could not bring such tokens to a villein. Galors, my dear
friend, if I owed nothing to Master le Gai, I doubt if I should help
you to this. 'Tis too much, my friend, with an earldom. She needs no
crown, pardieu!"
She knew her own crown had toppled, and grew a little bleak as she
thought of it. There was no earldom for her to fall back upon. She
looked older when off her guard. But she had determined to be loyal to
the one friend she had ever had. The worst woman in the world can do
that much. Therefore, when Isoult woke up she found herself made much
of. The sun of her day-dreaming rose again and shone full upon her. By
the end of the day they had reached Tortsentier. Isoult was fast in a
prison that had no look of a prison, where Galors was mending his
throat in an upper chamber.
Maulfry came and sat on the foot of his bed. Galors, strapped and
bandaged till he looked like a mewed owl in a bush, turned his chalk
face to her with inquiry shooting out of his eyes. He had grown a spiky
black beard, from which he plucked hairs all day, thinking and scheming.
"Well," was all he said.
Maulfry nodded. "The story is true. She has the feet and hands. She is
a little beauty. You have only to shut the hole in your neck."
Galors swore. "Let God judge whether that damned acrobat shall pay for
his writhing! But the other shall be my first business. So she is
here--you have seen her? What do you think of her?"
"I have told you."
The man's appetite grew as it fed upon Maulfry's praise of his taste.
"Ah--ah! Dame, I'm a man of taste--eh?"
Maulfry said nothing. Galors changed the note.
"How shall I thank you, my dear one?" he asked her.
"Ah," said she, "I shall need what you can spare before long."
Then she left him.