CHAPTER IX
William, Lord of Montjoy, was ignorant of what machinations might bein progress up the Vale of Wander. The Abbot had said, “Would he behelpful? It is for the glory of Silver Cross church, which, truly, isfor him his lady whom he must serve!”
The Prior shook his head. “No! No more than that monk himself! Let himthink naught save that there is holiness there!”
Abbot Mark drew groaning breath. “There was--there is--there shallbe--!”
Montjoy, in his castle yard, played for exercise at buffets with thesquire Ralph, then turned to castle wall, and with his arms restingupon stone parapet, looked downward and outward, gargoyle-wise. But hewas not such; he was living knight, struggling to reach Heavenly City.
It was snowing. Montjoy, wrapped in mantle, drew hood over head and letit snow. The flakes fell thickly, large and white. Castle rock droppedblack to castle hill that was whitening. Hill met Middle Forest thatpiled toward hill. The roofs were high, the roofs were steep. They werebrown, they were black, they were whitening. Where were chimneys rosefeathers of smoke. These were houses full and well-to-do. There werechimneys unfeathered.
Sweet--sweet, deep--deep, went Saint Ethelred’s bell. Sweet--sweet,deep--deep, the bell of the Poor Clares. Sweet--sweet, deep--deep, thebell of the small Carmelite house. The snow was a veil, but he saw theriver and the whitening bridge. Across, Saint Leofric’s mount mighthardly be seen, might be guessed, as it were--cloud friary, cloudchurch, cloud houses around, all set in a cloud. Thick, thick fell thesnow in great flakes.
Sweet--sweet, deep--deep rang the bells. He thought he could hearSaint Leofric’s. On a clear day when the wind was right, he could hearfrom this wall, far and thin, the bells of Silver Cross. To-day itcould not be for this ever-passing, ever-present wall in white motion.Yet he imaged the hearing. Silver Cross--Westforest up Wander--SaintLeofric--Saint Ethelred--Poor Clares--Carmelite--they rang, and it wasChristmas season.
Montjoy’s dark and serious eyes grew misty. “We strive andbuffet--cross joys, cross wills--yet, O true Lord, every bell is sweet!Even Saint Leofric’s--” He gripped with energy the stone coping. “Butit is so despite thee, Hugh, despite thy lying that one day shall chokethee!”
Silver Cross bells swung to the inner sense. They chimed, they rangunearthly clear and sweet, they rang clean. “Faulty is the time, andSilver Cross has been faulty--but never and never and never has it beennor will it be branded thief--as you, O Hugh, have branded that whichwas given you in charge!”
The snow fell, the snow fell. The roofs whitened, whitened. The smokefeathers that had been pale against dark now were dark against pale.The river and the bridge began to be hidden.
There was a high-roofed house with more than one great chimney stackout of which rose and waved full and plumy smoke feathers. Down chimneygreat burning logs, flame wrapped and purring, made the house warm, itbeing the house of the merchant Eustace Bettany. Alongside stood hiswarehouse and his shop, and one passed by doors from the one into theother. His house was clean, well-fitted. To-day, it being Christmastide, he had shut shop and given holiday, and was gone, he and hiswife and two daughters, to a kinsman’s house to dine and talk aroundkinsman’s fire, and listen to some music from viols and rebecs. Hisson, young Thomas, had turned wilful and would not go. Nor would he,this day, go to seek a jolly crew in some tavern. He often enoughdid that, but to-day his mood was indoors. Having house to himself,he piled on wood and summoned John Cobb. “You’ve on your mad dreamingcap!” said the latter.
Thomas plied the ash stick. “If I have not a play to go to, must I notmake the play? I cannot sit still. I must run, dance, fly. I would awitch would come down chimney and show me how!”
John Cobb crossed himself.
The fire burned, the fire sang. The snow fell, large flakes, white,down coming with an intimate, cool grace.
Somerville rode into town. He rode musingly, wrapped in a great greymantle, with a wide, grey, stiffened felt hat, keeping snow from himmuch like a shed roof. He had ridden from manor to Silver Cross wherehe had been entertained. Now he rode on to Middle Forest, and he rodein a deep study. Certain muscles twitched in his odd, brown face. Uponsetting out he had not meant to go farther than Silver Cross. He hardlyknew why he should ride on down Wander. Perhaps he might think that hewanted time to think. But below consciousness decisions were alreadymade, actions acted. That was what drew the muscles about mouth andeyes and, sitting in his wrist, turned his big bay horse down Wander,not up. He might think that he was thinking, but old life was actingafter old fashion. He rode through falling snow, and he rode not in themood of one night at Morgen Fay’s, but in a pleasanter, brisker mood.He felt amused, speculative, genial, triumphant. It was well to findhuman nature through and through the ancient, pleasant, faulty pattern!He did not dislike it--marry, no! It strengthened, buttressed, warmedand pleased his sense of himself to feel warp and woof so continuous.
Silver Cross had this day withdrawn all claim to that debated good mileof land. It had acknowledged Somerville’s right. Parchment crackled inhis pocket, parchment with Abbot Mark’s name and seal at bottom. Landat last in his hand. Why? Somerville knew why. “I am bought for themiracles.” Laughter played over his quick face.
Prior Matthew had “chanced” to be at Silver Cross. “He is the puppetmaster!”
Nothing had been divulged as to form of puppets, or that there werepuppets, or for that matter miracles. Certainly nothing was said ofpurchase. All had been warm, friendly, with an air of Yule. “But whenthere are miracles--believe and cry aloud that it is so! Never bringcold to wither them, snow to cover them! Be a friend, and in our camp!”Somerville laughed. After an old habit, he hummed, he sang as he rode:
“Turn thy coat-- Turn thy coat, Having the land, Having the land. So few know when they are bought! But all are bought, Few, few escape!”
He looked through snow to castle rock. “Ha, Montjoy, do you escape?”
For a moment a hand, as it were, wiped life from his face, leaving ithaggard and empty. But witches trooped at whistle, sardonic mirth cameback. “We buy and we are bought! Why not--if the world is PennyworthFair? If little good is had, so is little harm. It’s an empty barn,Montjoy, where the wind whistles!
“Little good will come, Little harm will come Of Abbot Mark, Of Silver Cross-- While away the day with plucking at the lute’s three strings!”
He rode through Middle Forest High Street and coming to the door ofMaster Eustace Bettany, dismounted and knocked. John Cobb let himin, and Thomas Bettany was most glad to see him. But he would nottarry. He had stopped in passing to ask Thomas to make him a visit atSomerville Hall. Thomas was blithe to say yes,--if his father couldspare him.
“Oh, he will spare you!” said Somerville intelligently.
His sworn follower laughed a little. In truth Somerville was important.Merchants spared sons to visit knights.
He mounted the big bay, he rode on down High Street. Thomas and JohnCobb watched from the door dwindling horse and man, taken into the snowworld and hidden there. Then they shook from their coats the flakes bigas guilders and returned to the fire. “Now you’ve got your pleasure andyour play! Did your witch bring him though?”
“No!” His blue eyes regarded John Cobb with a bright and distant look.“I’ll take you with me, John, for my man--”
The snow fell. The roof, the streets all were white. Sound wrappeditself in wool, in far time. The folk in the ways, the carts andwagons, the strong horses, went in a wafted veil. It witched them,witched the place and hour. As the snow fell fewer and fewer wereabroad. Somerville also heard the bells ring.
Morgen Fay’s house watched the head of the old wall grow white, andthe bridge grow white, and the flakes melt in the river. A dusky plumewaved from the chimney. Below was burning wood, and Morgen Fay movedfrom it to window and from window back again.
She was glad to see Somerville. “If ever I needed counsel, I need itnow! What is Ailsa? She cannot
give it, nor can Tony! What are theothers who come here? They have not thy wit, or they are too young ortoo old. Montjoy has wiped me from his dear soul!”
“Your eyes are red. Were you weeping for that?”
“No! And I wept not much. It does no good. My cousin, Father Edwin, isdead.”
“I knew not that he ailed!”
“Ay, he is dead. And there comes to me warning that Father Edmund willpreach against me in Saint Ethelred and at town cross.”
“Can there arrive great harm? Middle Forest likes thee pretty well!”
“Oh, once, I know, I might have sailed out of storm--”
“Why not again?”
“With the miracles--with Saint Leofric blazing there? Middle Forest isbecome good! I tell you I see before me stoning and misery!”
He studied the fire. He was inclined to agree with her that her hourhad struck. “Well! You have had years of down-lined nest--of merrylife!”
“So wind will blow less cold and stones bruise less? Merry life? Oh,aye, sometimes!”
“What will you do to escape?”
“Marry, tell me! Tell me, Rob!”
She came and put her hand upon his breast. She felt him draw slightlyback from her. She stood away herself and her dark eyes pierced him;she sighed. Presently she said, “Thou, too! thou, too! Well, out ofcommon decency, counsel me!”
He cogitated. “While there is yet time you might get secretly away--toLondon or elsewhere.”
“Oh, I want not to go! This is home. I should miss my river and mygarden.”
“Montjoy?”
“In old days he might--because that I look like that Isabel who lookedlike Our Lady in the Silver Cross picture. But now I know not that hewould shield, nor that he could. He hath put himself awry with all thefolk.”
Somerville laughed. “Aye, I have seen that! Let him speak now againstrising zeal at his peril! Out upon him will rush the hive!”
He sat regarding her with very bright eyes. “Man lives to learn! Untilthis moment I knew not that of Montjoy, nor that you are like--as now Isee you are like--that picture! Why did you never tell me that?”
“I know not. I have some grace--like a little star, far, far away!”
He regarded her meditatively. “You are a mixture! A hand shakes thephial until the dregs are on top.”
“I wish they were skimmed off and thrown away. But all of me might thenbe gone, oh, all of me! Tell me what I am to do, Robert!”
Leaning back in his chair, he looked now at her and now at the fire.“Priest against priest! Father Edwin dead. Seek afield. None at theCarmelites, no! Saint Leofric gives no help. Silver Cross--”
“Oh, Abbot Mark must trot his mule beside Zeal-for-goodness! Not elsecan he keep apace with the time!” Morgen Fay burst into laughter. Shelaughed, and then she sat silent with her head bowed upon the settle’sarm.
“If he preaches--Father Edmund--at town cross, best were it that youdisappear.”
“Lock house against better days and vanish--aye, where?”
“There’s many a place.”
“Aye, far away. I do not will to go far away. May not I have true lovebeside all the untrue?”
“Poor wretch! It is nigh smothered!” said Somerville and laughed; afterwhich he sat in silence and all manner of odd and mocking lights playedin his face. “Well, disappear up Wander!”
“How far up?”
“Well, not as far as Somerville Hall. That may not be. But there is theruined farm that bears toward Silver Cross. Put on country dress anddarken your face, and David and his wife who live there will take youin--Alice or Joan. I will speak to them. You may bide there until weare less good.”
There was silence. A red coal fell with a silken sound. Out of windowall was white and still. “I despair,” said Morgen Fay. “Not for thisdanger nor for that but I--I myself. I despair.”
“If there were any way to buy Silver Cross--” He sat and looked intothe fire.
The snow fell thick, thick and white. It hid the bridge, it hid SaintLeofric, it hid the castle of Montjoy. It wrapped the town. Dusk cameto help it. Snow and night wrapped the time and place.
In the night it ceased to snow and cleared. Winter stars and purpledawn and saffron day. The sun sprang up and beneath him lay a diamondearth. Somerville, riding up Wander, pulled his hat over eyes, sodazzling were the light shafts.
Out from the road that turned aside to Silver Cross came upon his mulethe Prior of Westforest, attended by two monks. There was greeting.“Ride on with me to Westforest, Sir Robert!”
They rode together and when they came to Westforest Somervilledismounted and went with Prior Matthew into his parlour.