The Forest Lovers Part 12

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 Ma.s.s; she genuflected and fell p.r.o.ne 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.