Silver Cross, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  Up in the castle also was company to supper. William, Lord of Montjoy,entertained his cousin, Abbot Mark from Silver Cross, and Prior Matthewof Westforest, a dependent House further up the Wander. Montjoy showeda small, dark, wistful man. The Abbot had too much flesh for comfort,a great, handsome, egg-shaped face, and a manner that oozed bland,undoubting authority. He had long ago settled that he was good andwise. But, strangely, was left the struggle to be happy! It took aman’s time! Just there, something or some one perpetually interfered!But it was something to be sure that you served God and Holy Church.Asked how he served, he might, after cogitation, have answered that heserved by his being. Moreover, as times went, he was scrupulous, gavesmall houseroom to scandal, ruled monk and tenant, beautified the greatchurch of Silver Cross, bought Italian altar pictures.

  Matthew of Westforest was another sort. Tall and shrivelled andreddish, he had another manner of wit.

  The three supped in the castle hall, at the upper end of a tableaccommodating a half-score above the salt and thrice that number below.Beside Montjoy sat Lady Alice, his wife. There were likewise a younggirl, his daughter Isabel, and his sister, also young, married andwidowed, Dame Elenore.

  Abbot Mark talked much to these three, benevolently, with gallantrylooking around corners. The Prior maintained silence here. The featureshe secretly praised were the beautiful features of Outward Advancement.Montjoy at supper talked little. After a life of apparent unconcern hewas beginning to think of soul’s life. Perhaps once a day he felt ashift of consciousness. Now it came like a zephyr from some differing,surely sweeter clime, and now like a clean dagger stroke. After theseevents, which never took more time to happen than the winking of aneye, he saw some great expanse of things differently. He was learningto lie in wait for these instants. Laid one to another, they werebecoming the hub around which the day’s wheel ran. But truly theywere but instants and came but once in so often, taking him when itpleased them. And the lightning might have showed him--perhaps did showhim--that there was an unknown number of things yet to change. Theymight be very many. He knew in no wise definitely whence came thefragrant air and the dagger strokes.

  At the moment when the chronicle opens, he had turned back, in hisquesting, to the broad realm of Holy Church. Holy Church said that shesat, acquiescent, wise, at the door through which such things came. Infact, she said, she had the keys. Montjoy, being no fool, saw, indeed,how much of the portress was lewd and drunken. But for all that surelyshe had been given the keys! Given them once, surely she could not haveparted with them! He rebuked the notion. And truly he knew much thatwas good of the portress, much that was very good. He thought, “I willbetter serve Religion”--conceiving that to be Holy Church’s high name.But he was bewildered between high name and low name, between the saintthere in the portress and the evident harlot. Between the goodness andthe evil!

  He was led by a longing for union and he only knew that it was notfor old unions that once had contented. He could have those at anytime if he willed them again. But he knew that they would not content.The longing was larger and demanded a larger reciprocal. He wasknight-errant now in the interior land of romance, out to find thatreciprocal, visited with gleams from some presence, but wanderingoften, turning in mistake now here, now there.

  Supper ended. Abbot Mark had come to the castle for counsel, or atthe least, for intelligent sympathy. It was too general in the hall.The withdrawing room would be better. They went to this, but stillthere was play, with a fire for a cool June evening, with lights andmusical instruments, Dame Elenore’s hands upon the virginals, youngIsabel’s fresh voice singing with a young knight, man of Montjoy’s, twogentlewomen serving Lady Alice murmuring over a tapestry frame,--andthe Abbot soothed, happy, in the great chair near Dame Elenore. PriorMatthew shook himself. “Business! Business!” was his true motto andinner word. He spoke in a low voice to the Abbot, deferentially, forthe Priory deduced from the Abbey, but monitory also, perhaps evenminatory. Abbot and Prior alike knew that when it came to business thePrior had the head.

  The Abbot sighed and turned from Dame Elenore to Montjoy who wasbrooding, chin on fist, eyes on fire. “We must ride early to SilverCross, Montjoy! Counsel is good, they say, taken in the warm, stillhour before bedtime.”

  Dame Elenore lifted her hands from the virginals. Montjoy’s wife spoketo her women and, the song being done, to her daughter. “We will go,my lord. Give you good night! Your blessing, Lord Abbot!” She kneeledfor it, as did young Isabel and Dame Elenore and the two gentlewomenand the young knight and Gilbert the page. The Abbot blessed; thewomen and the young men took their departure. Montjoy and Silver Crossand Westforest had the room and the fire and through the window theview, did they choose to regard it, of the town roofs and twisting,crack-like streets, and of the river, now under the gleaming of arising moon, and a line that was the bridge, and a mound on the fartherside crowned by a twinkling constellation, lights of Saint Leofric’smonks. The Abbot did so look, walking heavily the room and pausing bythe window. It was with peevish face and gesture that he returned tothe great chair “Do you hear each day, Montjoy, louder news of whatHugh is doing?”

  “Is it Prior Hugh, or is it Saint Leofric? If it be Hugh, I say thatlong since we knew that he was ambitious and glory-covetous. If it bethe saint--how shall you war against him?”

  “If Saint Willebrod would arise to war--”

  “Would they war--two saints?”

  “Would he not come to aid of St. Robert, St. Bernard, St. Stephenand Abbey of Silver Cross? Just as Montjoy would draw blade for hissuzerain? Chivalry, loyalty and fealty must hold in heaven,” said theAbbot.

  “If there is One behind Saint Leofric--”

  “Never believe it!” The Prior spoke hastily. “Moreover, my son, it iscertainly not Leofric. It is Hugh!”

  Montjoy sat brooding. His guests watched him. Presently he spoke. “Twodays ago, returning from hawking in Long Fields, I met a man who hadsat and woven baskets from his youth because he could not walk, beingsmitten in both feet. He was walking, he was skipping and running.‘Saint Leofric! Saint Leofric!’ he kept crying out, and those with himcried, ‘Saint Leofric! Saint Leofric!’ I halted one of them. ‘The righthand and arm--the right hand and arm that were found, lord! He touchedbut the little finger--and look how he leaps and runs!’”

  The Abbot groaned.

  “I rode on farther and I met a stream of folk on their way to thebridge. They had made themselves into a procession and were chanting. Iremember easily and I can almost give you their chant. It ran somethinglike this.”

  He began to chant, but not loudly.

  “‘They were found through a dream, They were shown to Brother Paul, A saintly monk, Where they rested Under a stone In a place prepared of old In Saint Leofric’s great church! The white bones, The right arm and the right hand, Miraculous! In the monk’s dream They shone through the stone Making a pool of light. Saint Leofric painted in the window Came down and kneeled over it.’”

  Again the Abbot groaned. “So saith Hugh!”

  “‘Good Prior Hugh made to dig. There in sweet earth, In spices and linen, The right hand and arm At last! Yea, it shineth forth-- Saint Leofric smileth in his window!’”

  The Abbot groaned the third time. “Sathanas smileth!”

  “‘Now are the bones together, They shine with a sunny light, Working miracles!-- From the four corners come The sick and the sorrowful--’”

  “Aye! Bringing gifts!”

  “‘Saint Leofric’s name is in all mouths, His glory encreaseth over Silver Cross!’”

  “I should not have said it--I should not have said it!” cried theAbbot. “But with the inconstant and weak generality it doth! What is itthis part England rings with--yea, that the rest of England begins tolearn? Do we not hear that a pilgrimage comes from London itself? _Themissing bones of Saint Leofric have been found!_”


  “And have they not?” said Montjoy.

  There followed a pause. A log cracked and fell upon the hearth. Lightand shadow leaped about the room. The Prior spoke. “It is a matter ofobservation,” he said, and seemed to study his ring, “that there arecases when acts belief as belief, whether it be correctly addressed toa reality or squandered before a falsity.”

  “I have met that witch,” answered Montjoy, “and she palsies me!” Hewent to the window and stood looking out at the moon-silvered townand river. Presently back he came. “Against what or whom do you shakea lance? If it be against a saint and his true miracles, I lay thequarrel down--”

  Abbot Mark spoke weightily. “And so should I, Montjoy, and so shouldI! But if it be against falsity? If it be against Hugh and his frauds?”

  “Prove that!”

  The Abbot turned toward the Prior. The latter nodded and spoke. “Webrought with us two wandering friars--Franciscans. Westforest has knownthem long. They are not the idle and greedy rogues that bring us downwith the people. They are right Mendicants, travelling from place toplace to do good. Will it please you have them summoned?”

  A silver bell stood upon the table. Montjoy struck it. His pageappeared, took commands and bowing vanished. Abbot Mark began tospeak of the church at Silver Cross and how he would make it so richand beautiful! Now Montjoy loved this church. Buried beneath it werehis parents, and buried his first young wife, the one whom he lovedas he did not love Dame Alice. It was she he had loved through andbeyond Morgen Fay, loving something of her in that sinner from whom,in concern for his soul, he had parted. He listened to the Abbot.Certainly Silver Cross was the highest, the most beauteous, and must bekept so! He knew Silver Cross, church and cloister, in and out, whenhe was a boy and after. He had love and concern for it--love almost ofa lover--jealous love. Prior Hugh and Saint Leofric must not go beyondbounds!

  The two friars entered, Andrew and Barnaby, honest-looking men, Andrewthe more intelligent. They stood by the door with hands crossed andMontjoy observed them. Given permission to advance and speak they camediscreetly, with modesty, into conclave. Without preamble, they began.

  The Abbot spoke. “My sons, the Lord Montjoy who hath ever been devouttoward Saint Willebrod and his Abbey of Silver Cross--yea, who hathbeen, like his father before him, advocate and protector and enricherof the same, bringing from overseas emeralds, rubies and sapphiresfor that marvel the casket where lies that world’s marvel, the crossof Saint Willebrod--the Lord Montjoy, my sons, would have fromyour own lips that which you heard and saw in April, it now beinglate June.--Question them, Matthew, so that they may show it forthexpeditiously.”

  The Prior squared himself to the task. “Where were you, my sons, twoweeks before Easter?”

  “Across the river, reverend father. The granddame of Brother Barnabyhere, living at Damson Lane, was breathing her last and greatly wishfulto see him. She died--may her soul rest--and we buried her. Then wewould go a little further, not having been upon yonder side for somewhile.”

  “You did not go brawling along, nor fled into every alehouse as ifSatan were after you?”

  “Lord of Montjoy, we are not friars of that stripe. We are clean menand sober, praise God and Our Lady!”

  “Aye, aye, they speak truth, Montjoy.--Well, you walked in country overthere, avoiding Friary and town--if one can call that clump of mud,pebble and thatch a town!”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Brother Barnaby, lord, had had a dream. In it a Shining One plucked uptowns like weeds and threw them one by one into a great and deep pit.There was left alive only country road, heath and field and wood. So heawoke quaking and said, ‘I go through never a town gate this journey!’”

  “That was a discomfortable dream!”

  The Abbot spoke. “I interpret it. The towns, one by one, are that onewhich Hugh, dreaming and dreaming again, thinks to see rise besidehis Friary, built from pilgrims’ wealth, with hostels for pilgrimsand merchants to sell them goods, and a great house for nobles whocome!--But a Shining One, Hugh! topples them into ditches, yea, intogulfs, as fast as you build them! Ha! Go on, my son!”

  “So we passed the town and we wandered, reverend father, until we cameto the chapel of Damson Hill, three miles from Saint Leofric’s, wherethe dead country folk lie under green grass. Damson Wood is hard by,where watches and prays the good hermit Gregory--”

  “Aye, aye, a good man!” said Montjoy.

  “By now the sun was setting. He gave us water and bread, and afterpraying we lay down to sleep with only our gowns for bed and bedding.Brother Barnaby and I slept, but on the middle of the night we waked.Then saw we the hermit standing praying, and when he saw that we nolonger slept he said to us, ‘Misdoing is moving through this night.Misdoing in high places!’ So he went to the door and stood a long timelooking out, then took his staff and strode forth, and Brother Barnabyand I followed.”

  “I know that he is said to have the greater vision,” said Montjoy.“Moreover, once in my life, he told me high truth.”

  “Where did the holy man go, my son?”

  “He went through the black night, reverend father, to Damson Hill andto the great and ill-kept graveyard under the shadow. Brother Barnabyand I followed him. He walked softly and he walked swiftly and hewalked silently, and when we came there we did not stop by the chapelwhich truly is a ruin, but we went on to the far slope of the yard--”

  The Prior said, “Where they are buried who died long since, of theplague that came in King Richard’s time.”

  “I know the place,” said Montjoy.

  “Reverend father, there are three yew trees, old, I reckon, as DamsonHill, and thick. Like one who knows what he is about he passed withinthe castle of these and we followed and made a place whence we lookedforth like eyes out of a skull. And we saw, across the dead field, alittle light burning blue and coming toward us. Arm of the hill hid itfrom the road. But had any belated seen it he would most certainly havethought, ‘A ghost among the graves!’ and taken to his heels.”

  “It came toward you. Who carried it?”

  “One of six, reverend father. We were there in the yew clump withless noise than maketh a bat. They came closer and closer and at lastthey came close, and now they did not shelter their lantern for theythought, ‘The shoulder of the hill and the yew trees hide, and whoshould be abroad in this place in the black and middle night, and whoshould know of a villainy working?’”

  The Abbot brought his finger tips together. “It is everdiscovered!--They dig a pit and fall into it; they open a grave andlift out their own perdition!”

  “They opened a grave?”

  “Yes, lord. A very ancient, sunken one.”

  “Some unknown,” said the Prior. “Some wretch of ancient time, seizedby the plague, dying--who knows?--unshriven, lazar mayhap or thief!Proceed, my son!”

  “Two had spades. They spread a great cloth. They lay the green turf toone side of this, and in the middle the earth of the grave. They workhard and they work fast, and a monk directs--”

  “Monk of Saint Leofric’s?”

  “Aye, lord, Dominican. White-and-black. They open the grave and theybring forth bones--the frame of that perished one.”

  The Abbot groaned. “Perished mayhap in his sins--yea, almost certainlyin his sins--and so no better than heathen or than sorcerer!”

  “They spread a second cloth, and having shaken forth the earth, theyput in it the bones of that obscure--yea, right arm and hand with therest--”

  “See you, Montjoy?”

  “Then, having that which they need, they fill in the grave withcare. They put over it the sod they had taken away. Rain and sun mustpresently make it whole. And probably no man hath ever gone that way tolook. So the six went away as though they had moth wings, and now withno light--”

  “Yet they give forth that right hand and arm doth shine, giving lightwhereby a reading man may read! Wherefore--oh, Hugh!--shone it not byDamson Hill?”

  Said Montjoy, “All this
is enough to father Suspicion, but the childmust be named Certainty.”

  “Then listen further!--Proceed, my son. You two and the hermitfollowed?”

  “We followed, reverend father. Under Damson Hill those six parted, andthree went by divers ways, belike to their own dwellings. But the threewith the bones they had digged went Saint Leofric’s road. We followedBlackfriar and his fellows who would be lay brethren. The moon shoneout. We followed to Friary Gate and saw them enter.”

  “And then?”

  “Gregory the hermit turned and went again to Damson Wood, and we withhim. When we came to his cell there was red east.”

  “What did you think of what you had seen?”

  “We could conceive naught, lord. We did not know that which was tobe proclaimed in Easter week. But the hermit said thrice, ‘Villainy!Villainy! Villainy! A shepherd hath turned villain!’”

  Brother Barnaby came in. “He said besides, ‘I see what you cannot see,good brothers! But dimly, and I cannot explain to myself what I see.’”

  “I had forgot that.”

  “He said also. ‘Talk not, till you know of what you are talking,’ andhe took from us a promise of silence.”

  “I was coming to that, brother.--We are not gabblers, reverend father.We left Damson Wood and came down to the bridge and crossed river toour own side. We said naught, remembering, ‘Talk not till you know ofwhat you are talking.’ Two days went by, and then near Little Winching,up the Wander, down lay Brother Barnaby with a fever, and I must nursehim for a month. He, being very sick, forgot, and I being busy andconcerned, nigh forgot Damson Graveyard and Saint Leofric’s Gate. Then,Brother Barnaby getting well and we walking in a fair morning to LittleWinching, there meets us all the bruit!”

  “And still”--Brother Barnaby came in again--“we said nothing. But itburned our hearts. So said Brother Andrew, ‘We will go take this thingto Prior Matthew of Westforest.’”

  “And so they did, according to right inner counsel,” said the Prior. Heturned in his chair. “You may go now, my sons. But on your obedience,speak as yet to none other of these things!”

  Brother Andrew and Brother Barnaby craved blessing, received it andvanished. There was pause, then, “If we check not Hugh,” said theAbbot, “we shall have loss and shame, being no longer the first, thepupil of the eye, to this part England!”

  “If they spoke,” said Montjoy, “none would believe them against themiracles. Nor do I know if I would believe. Say that one saw the robbedgrave--what then? One travels not much further! I would believe, Ithink, the hermit.”

  “Then will you ride, Montjoy, to Damson Wood?”

  “Yes, I will go there. But my believing and yours and Gregory’s and thefriars’ make not yet the people’s believing. Here is stuff for splendidquarrel with Hugh--but in the meantime go the folk in rivers, touch therelics and are healed!”

  “What we need,” said the Prior, and he spoke slowly and cautiously, “iscounter-miracle.”

  “Yes, but you cannot order the Saints!”

  “No.”

  It was again the Prior who spoke and apparently in agreement. The Abbotsighed. “Well, let us to bed!--Go to Damson Wood, Montjoy, and thenride to Silver Cross.”

  “I will do that. I see,” said Montjoy, “the mischief that this thingdoes you--”

  Even as he spoke he had a vision of the Abbey church of Silver Cross.He saw the tombs and the sculptured figure of Isabel whom he hadloved, and the great altar painting of Our Lady done in Italy. Underthe breath of his mind he thought that that form and face were likeIsabel’s. So like that almost she might have been in that Italianpainter’s mind when he painted this glorified woman standing buoyant,in carnation and sapphire, among clouds that thinned into clear bluethat passed in its turn into light that blinded. He saw the glowingglass in the great windows; he saw the gems--the gems that he had givenamong them--sparkling in the golden box that held the silver cross. Hesaw the people on holy days flooding the famous church. They warmedwith eyes of life the stone mother and father, the stone Isabel. Themany people’s bended knees, their recognition, helped to assure eternallife in the Queen of Heaven pictured in the great painting,--and surelyso in Isabel, the picture was so like her! The more people the morelife--Isabel surely safely there in the eternal Bride and Mother--andif Isabel then surely he, too, her lover and husband, he, too,Montjoy! The people must flow there still, recognising life when theysaw it and as it were, giving life, increasing life.

  Anything that turned the people away from Silver Cross became in thatact the enemy of Montjoy; anything that kept them flowing there, thatmade them more in number, the friend of Montjoy.

  But Abbot and Prior, lodged in connecting chambers and speakingtogether before they laid themselves to sleep in huge beds, shook theirheads over him. Or rather the Abbot did so. The Prior was not liberalwith sighs and gestures. “He’ll agree to no shift that smacks of thelie, however slight, necessary, simply defensive, pious it be--”

  “Are you sure? I am not,” answered Matthew. “But if he will not--keephim blind like other men, blind and usable! He may indeed prove moreusable for being blind.”