Part 9

In a rage nothing could exceed the girl's beauty. Quite carried away by it, the fellow seized her about the waist and kissed her so fiercely and breathlessly that she could not scream. She felt herself drawn closer and closer to him, and his eyes burned into her; she noticed that they swam wildly in his head and showed their whites like a man who had lost his reason. As one hand loosened for an instant, she made a frantic effort of her strength, and slipping from his clasp, she bounded away like a hare through the woods before he had recovered from his astonishment. She rushed on in a wild tumult. It had been quite different when the Baron had kissed her; now she felt degraded; tears of indignation and rage ran down her cheeks. She was furious to think that a forester of the Baron would dare so insult her. A forester indeed! That were to fall lower than her mother. And yet he was a likely-looking fellow and there was no denying it, there was something within her that responded to his wild love-making. As she first became aware of it she ran harder and harder, as if she could run away from herself. She wanted to escape something within her that made her afraid, but it was of no use, she might as well face it. She missed the strong pressure of the fellow's brawny arms; there was a somewhat deep down within her that wanted to see, just for an instant again, that peculiar expression in his face,--a somewhat that longed for that rain of hot kisses. There it was out! She had a horror of herself; on and on she sped, panting, panting. What was it that had come over her? She had fled from the fellow, her maidenhood had revolted, and she had escaped from him, but she could not escape from the tumult he had stirred within her. So, then, she was a woman who could not remain unresponsive to a man's love-making, no matter who he be? Oh, shame! shame! was she to burn at the touch of every clodhopper, she who had thought herself so immeasurably above them all? There was no one to tell her that hers was merely a high-strung, overwrought temperament which responds when played upon as a delicate instrument responds to the slightest touch. It was no more within her power to be indifferent to the contact with passion than it was within the power of mercury to refuse to mark the changes in the temperature.

In this wild mood she had fled to her home, and come upon the young poor priest with his arm about her cousin. "Always love-making, love-making," she thought, "no end to it all." And yet this was no wild paroxysm before her, but a picture of calm joy and peace. Dimly she realized even then that to waken such love was not in her power, and for the first time in her life she caught herself actually envying her cousin Matilda.

"This is my cousin Rose," said Matilda. And then flinging both arms about Rose, she whispered in her ear, "Just think! We are going to be married. I must tell thee."

Rose smiled. She thought few would be surprised. She took Robert's hand in hers and clasped it warmly.

"She is a dear good girl," she said. "You will be very happy."

He found no answer on his tongue, and although he was fully conscious of the absurdity of it, he immediately proposed that Matilda bring the Bible and that they see how much progress she had made during his absence. He politely invited Rose to listen and to Matilda's surprise she readily acquiesced, she who had always scoffed at their Bible reading. Only she begged that the poor priest read instead of Matilda.

So in his exquisitely modulated voice he began:

"For the sovereign Lord of all will not refrain himself for any man's person, neither will he reverence greatness, because it is he that made both small and great."

But while his lips uttered those words his heart sang:--

"Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, And thy mouth is comely: Thou art all fair, my love; And there is no spot in thee."

When Matilda started up, suddenly saying she had heard the voice of her grandmother calling, the heavy folio slipped unheeded from his knee, and he gazed steadily at Rose with eyes that bore a look as if a thick veil had suddenly fallen from them. There was a world of pathos in his face, for he realized, even as he gazed on her, that nothing again could ever look to him as it had looked before this moment had come. Rose had watched him furtively while he read, surprised to find him so handsome. She had never seen him other than at a distance, for his coarse russet gown had repelled her. But now she observed with astonishment how beautiful were his deep-set, blue eyes, how noble his high forehead, how exquisitely moulded his lips and chin, how proud the carriage of his head. Everything about him, even his slender, delicate hands, spoke of a refinement far beyond even that of the Baron, for all his silks and embroideries. Prim little Matilda was not so foolish, then, after all!

As he looked on her, he saw with bewilderment all his well-laid plans come crashing to the ground. He had been so sure of himself (but self-pride had ever been his besetting sin). Here was a lesson in humility, indeed! He understand the love of a woman! He, forsooth, an ignorant youngster! He, who but a half-hour ago (when he had been ages younger) had been willing to lay down the law to saints and martyrs! Ignoramus! Had he not held a woman's form to his and praised God that his heart had not beat one stroke the quicker? Had not he pressed a kiss on a woman's brow and been thankful that there had been no unchaste thrill? Well did he know now with a sudden revelation that he could not so much as touch this woman's hand but the blood would mount like strong wine to his head. There was a touch of solemnity in his eyes as they rested on the face that was teaching him so much. When at last she stirred uneasily under his persistent gaze, it seemed to him as if hours, months,--years, had passed.

"Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my bride; Thou has ravished my heart With one look from thine eyes. With one chain of thy neck."

She started at the low words which seemed to escape him involuntarily. Annys continued to gaze gravely on her, and came near to her.

"Why didst thou come into my life?" he asked quietly.

Then after an instant's pause for the reply which did not come, he added hopelessly, with a weary sigh, "I had thought myself so happy."

And then without one word more he was gone.

XVI

The following morning, as Matilda accompanied Annys on an errand of mercy, she noticed his haggard face.

"I have passed the night in prayer," was all he vouchsafed to her anxious inquiries. He did not tell her what his prayer had been. Indeed, now that the morning had come, and Matilda was by his side, the long, sleepless night seemed as an evil dream.

They were on their way to an old man who was lying on the point of death, kept alive only by his strong yearning to be shrived by Robert Annys. Matilda had paid daily visits to the old man during the poor priest's absence. As Annys looked down on the good, strong woman by his side, he felt himself possessed by a new strength. He believed he would be able to shake off the spell that had come over him. He must keep near Matilda, he must not let her go from him. There was medicine in her perfect companionship.

As they paused before a dilapidated house on the edge of the woods, Rose came by.

"Ever going about comforting others," she hailed them in her light way; "in truth, wings will yet grow on the pair of you."

Matilda laughed, but Annys kept his eyes gravely on the door which stood ajar before him. A horrid, gasping sound came from within. Rose shuddered. "Ugh!" she cried, "how canst thou, Matilda, poke about in those filthy places? See, it is a perfect day. Come with me into the woods and go nutting."

Then as Matilda shook her head, she added in a sanctimonious tone, "Hast no pity for the poor nuts a-rotting on the cold hard ground?"

The words were addressed to Matilda, yet the man by her side read the invitation in them, his senses all astir.

"Oh, Rose, Rose," expostulated Matilda, "thou dost love to make thyself out far worse than thou art. Cease these gibes and enter with us; a sight of thy pretty face will gladden the poor soul."

But a look of disgust passed over Rose's face. "Go in there? I? B'r'r! Go near that horrid old man who fastens one rheumy eye on you while his slobbery chin shakes like a huge jelly? B'r'r!"

Annys's face was tense and hard. He never turned his eyes from the door, yet the golden brown of her dancing eyes quivered before him, the scarlet of her full lips scorched into him. He was aware of every inch of her disdainful, impish presence as she stood there watching him from a corner of one eye. But without turning he bade Matilda follow him, and the two were swallowed up in the dim interior of the hovel. The girl outside shook with suppressed laughter, yet she bit her lip in some impatience and puffed out her cheeks in an odd little grimace.

Within, the old man lavishly poured blessings upon them both; upon Matilda for keeping her promise to bring the poor priest, upon him for coming.

"Never would I have seen this day," he declared, "but for her. She did come every day, cheering me and helping me wait."

Annys smiled tenderly on Matilda who stood blushing by his side. But even as he smiled, he was conscious of a strange red glow dancing before his eyes. Suddenly the old man sat up, and seizing Matilda's hand in his bony fingers, placed it within the poor priest's hand.

"That is right," he whispered as he did so. "Bless you both--a pair of saints!"

Annys started violently and snatched his hand away before he was aware of it. He was maddened by that glow which was everywhere, on the walls, on Matilda, on the straw where the old man lay, on the ghastly, emaciated face. He tried to recover his composure and sought to take Matilda's hand and press it, but she was visibly offended and withdrew from the bedside.

The invalid's sudden spark of vitality died down, leaving him barely conscious. Matilda left sadly, and Annys sank on his knees by the pallet, praying for the departing soul. When, half an hour later, he left the hut, it was to walk to the other end of the village where another sufferer awaited him. He walked on, his head bowed. He tried to fix his thoughts on the patient young girl whose last hours he was about to soothe, but the face that hovered before him had none of the pallor of death. Suddenly he was roused by a slight stirring before him, and he looked up startled to find himself in the thick of the woods, under a great chestnut tree, while before him was the bent form of Rose, gathering the nuts into a little basket. So, then, his feet had carried him there to her against his will! His face was even a shade paler than its wont, and his hands were clenched fiercely, as he turned about and walked rapidly in the opposite direction.

He had not been quick enough, however, to escape being seen, for as he left, the girl straightened herself and gazed after him. For a few seconds her shoulders shook with laughter, then suddenly her face sobered, and she bit her lips in vexation.

XVII

All that day and night Matilda brooded over Robert's strange behavior. Nevertheless, she greeted him calmly when, the next day, he approached while she was busily spinning before her door. Seeing Rose lying full length upon the grass, idly plucking handfuls of it and flinging them at Matilda, he hesitated. "Why do the feet of a lover lag?" Rose asked, impudently looking up at Annys. Matilda colored. She talked with Annys, while Rose looked on with an amused air. "Ah, Matilda, dear," she began after an instant, "after all, didst thou well to plight thy troth to a poor priest?"

"Wilt ever be serious?" asked her cousin, annoyed.

"I am as serious as a Bishop," she replied. "Indeed I have not seen him kiss thee once. Of a truth I have not."

Matilda vowed she would leave if another word were said of such nonsense. Rose smiled maliciously and watched the poor priest's set face, while all sorts of pert sayings hovered on the end of her tongue.

"Old Silas died," announced Annys, gravely, "I have just come from there."

"And how is dear Betty?"

"I did not get to her last night," he said in some confusion. Rose laughed to herself. Matilda looked grieved. "Ah, the poor girl!" she said, "she longed for you so."

"Oh, these lovers will be the death of me!" broke out Rose, no longer able to contain herself. "Were I blessed with a lover, now, I vow it would not be of corpses and dying girls we would talk!"

"Be quiet, Rose!" exclaimed Matilda, sternly for her, "we talk of serious things."

"That's what I complain of!" pouted the irrepressible girl.

Matilda and Annys spoke together a few minutes in whispers.

At last flinging a handful of grass straight at him:--

"When will be the happy day?" she drawled.

He started nervously. "I have a journey to take," he said in a strained voice. "I leave to-morrow. I do not know just when I can return."

Rose's eyebrows lifted in surprise. Matilda regarded him anxiously.

"Yea, I have received an urgent call. I had come to tell thee."

But there had been no call, and Rose's mocking eyes seemed to read his subterfuge.

"Wilt return for the Fair?" she asked.

"Surely," he answered, "I have promised to be there. Men will gather there from every county."

"I will be there," she announced quickly, and then laughed to see the dismay in his face.

"And Matilda, too, surely?" he hastened to ask. But Matilda shook her head.

"I may not be spared," she said gently.

"Oh, yes, Matilda is the saint. I am the selfish, wilful one," laughed Rose, who seemed determined to make Annys uncomfortable.

"I must go to Betty now," Annys said. "Good-by, Matilda, I shall see thee soon again--immediately after the Fair." He kissed her on the forehead, and for the first time he felt her shrink from his touch.

"Be _sure_ to return in time from that _important_ mission!" Rose called after him. And Matilda looked at her, wondering.

He walked rapidly on, his mind in a whirl, taking no note of where he was going. That sudden, unpremeditated lie agonized him. And yet, perhaps, after all, this lie would be his salvation. Perhaps once away from that girl with her maddening beauty he could cast off the spell she had wrought upon him. It was a daily torture to meet Matilda with a lie on his heart, to meet Rose was but a torture of another kind. Yes, he would go away for a brief spell.

Suddenly he found himself before the walls of the Monastery of the Bury St. Edmonds. For the first time he longed for the peace that was there. There, before him, was but the thickness of a few stones, and yet the men behind it, how immeasurably separated were they from the rest of the world! All the forces of nature--chains of mountains and the turbulent streams of the forests--had not in them the powers of isolation that rested in that wall erected by the hand of man. He stood without, in the midst of the strenuousness, the revolt, the passion, and sorrow of the world: they within were taken up and cared for as little children in the lap of some great-hearted Mother. The world and its ways and all worldliness went on far from them, and no sound of the battle of the forces, good and evil, ever was heard. An orderly and unbroken succession of tasks was laid out for them. They had no difficult problems to weigh, no decisions to make. Ah, how he envied them for that! There was no fretting over the duty of the morrow or the day after the morrow, the mind was kept fixed on the duty of the moment; from this one passed imperceptibly to the duty of the hour, to the duty of the day. From Matin to Prime and from Prime to Tierce, from Tierce to Sexte, and Sexte to None, and again to Vespers and on to Compline, certain tasks that in no case may be missed or deferred: prayers to be chanted during the day; one hundred and fifty psalms of David divided so that the whole psalter should be chanted every week; the taking one's turn to be cook, or to wait upon the table in the refectory, or to read from some pious book while the others ate in silence. So, calmly, unresisting, one slipped down the gentle slope to death.

Ah, no wonder Alcuin had passionately lamented his cloister when he was called to the court of Charlemagne:--

"Oh, my sweet cell! and well-beloved home. Adieu forever! Dear cell! I shall weep thee and regret thee always."

But the solace of even a short sojourn within a Monastery was denied him--the excommunicated one. It had been easy for him to fling defiance to the Church when upheld by his sense of righteousness, but now, no longer sinless, he yearned to kneel before the altar and be shrived.

In the course of his life it had come to him to determine what was the right thing to do--there had never been a question of knowing the right and not doing it. Now the right path lay clearly defined, without the slightest doubt, yet it was to be a life and death struggle to follow it. During the past few days he had pored for hours at a time over the "Lives of the Saints," reading again and again their denunciations of women, hoping to strengthen his purpose to prove that the love of woman could be pure. It was his most deeply cherished hope that his example in taking a wife like Matilda would lead to the establishment of a married clergy. Up to this moment, knowing the purity and nobility of his motives, he had not shrunk from the indignation of the Churchmen that was sure to break forth on his taking a woman openly in wedlock. And now he was obliged to admit to himself that he loved a woman whom it would be impossible to marry. Impossible because of his plighted troth to Matilda, but also--and that hurt deeper--because she was surely no ideal priest's wife. His high and mighty theories on the marriage of the clergy must vanish into thin air if he held up Rose as a proper spouse for a priest of God. Rose to kneel before the leper and wash his feet! Rose to enter the homes of the afflicted and hunger-stricken and bring them comfort! No, there was nothing gained by trying to shut his eyes to the truth. He loved a woman who could not further one strong hope of his soul, who could not answer to one noble impulse.

"Give not thy soul unto a woman, that she should set her foot upon thy strength."

But that was precisely what he had done. Every argument proved conclusively that he never ought to see Rose Westel again. But one might as well seek by argument to stop a raging flood from bearing down upon one as to attempt to argue away an emotion. There was no need to convince him that he ought to hate the woman who had so suddenly wrought ruin upon his most cherished hopes. A part of him did hate her--the rest of him adored.

There was prayer left to him. He had tried prayer with all the fervor of his tortured soul. The night before, following the advice of one of the Fathers, he had passed upon his knees reiterating only the one phrase,--

"Deus meus et Omnia." "My God and my All, My God and my All."

His heart was overshadowed by the thought that God had surely withdrawn His love from him or He could not permit him to suffer so. Again and again he had flung himself on his knees and sobbed out the prayer uttered by St. Augustine when he was endeavoring to overcome the ways of his youth:--

"Thou, my Lord, how long yet? O Lord, how long yet wilt thou be angry? How long? How long? Why not in this hour put an end to my shame?"

It was easy when alone to ponder over such words as those of St. Jerome:--

"Love the knowledge of the Scriptures and thou wilt not love the lusts of the flesh."

It was easy to feel the truth of St. Dominic's admonition:--

"A man who governs his passions is master of the world. We must either command them or be enslaved to them. It is better to be the hammer than the anvil."

All very admirable, yet they were but words, words, words. Excellent counsellings, wise reasonings, they were, but could they master one wild throb of his veins leaping in her presence? Could they make the vision of her one whit less radiant and compelling? Had he created the world? Was it his fault or the fault of the Creator of all things that this great longing for her held him in subjection, and that until that was satisfied there was no peace for him in all the wide, wide world? The wildest thoughts ran through his mind at times. It was not too late, he would recant, and go back and enter the Church, and become a great and powerful prelate. He could yet live in a palace and offer her a fitting setting for her glorious beauty. If he closed his eyes he never failed to see himself in magnificent robes seated at the centre of the great table with her at his side. He could see the gleam of jewels as they rose and fell on her white bosom; he could see the light in her eyes as she turned toward him; he could feel the thrill from the touch of her soft white hands.

Yes, it was best to go and strive with all his might to forget Rose Westel, and return to the Bury with his honor unstained, return to keep his troth with Matilda.

He had promised to return immediately after the Fair. This great Fair of Stourbridge had for over a year been looked to as an important meeting place before the final rendezvous at Blackheath. It lacked now but a few days before its opening, for over a fortnight past it had been officially proclaimed by officers going about the country forbidding any merchant to sell or exhibit for sale any goods in any place for a distance of seven leagues about, except inside the gates of the Fair.

Inside these gates there would be gathered people from leagues away on every side. It would be a precious opportunity, for in no wise else might the people gather together in great numbers without exciting suspicion. Here at the Fair, under the pretence of buying and trading, the most important conferences could take place, final arrangements for the great gathering be talked over, and the march on to the Maidstone gaol with ten thousand of men as Ball had foretold could be planned. Here minstrels could go about singing the songs that set the blood of the rustics a-tingling, so that they might be heartened for the long hard winter that yet lay before them.

XVIII

The morning of the opening of the Fair found Annys, together with hundreds of others, tramping along the road to Stourbridge. From the very earliest sign of dawn the highway had bustled with life. The people poured in from all sides,--from as far north as Norwich and Kings Lynn and Marham, and from Colchester and Mile End in the east, and Oxford in the west, and Maidstone and Tunbridge and Guildford in the south, and even from the great city of London they came. For weeks the whole southeast corner of England had been in a turmoil of preparation. The harbors of the seaport towns, Blakeney and Colchester and Lynn and Norwich, had been filled with foreign vessels, swarming with swarthy-faced sailors from the Mediterranean and tow-haired sailors from the North Sea. All these were doubly welcome, for not only they brought trade to the towns, but news, news of far-off lands and far-off peoples. The relation of man to man had a freshness, a piquancy in those days, for one told the other of what was happening in the world, and so each man was then a bearer of news, and not a mere commentator on news already known.