“My dear heart,” said the good woman,
“you are tired to death. Come with me to
the still-room; I will give you a cordial.”
The liquor at least sent some blood to her face and
lips, with whose help she was able to find her bed.
For that night she had for bedfellow a fat nun, who
snored and moaned in her sleep, was fretful at the
least stir, and effectually prevented her companion
from snoring, in turn, if she had been afflicted with
that disease. Isoult stirred little enough:
being worn out with grief entirely new to her, to
say nothing of her fatigue of travel, she lay like
a log and (what she had never done before) dreamed
horribly. Very early, before light, she was awake
and face to face with her anguish again. She
lay in a waking stupor, fatally sensible, but incapable
of responsible action. She had to hear Prosper’s
voice in the courtyard sharply inquiring of the way,
his words to his horse, all his clinking preparations;
she heard his high-sung “Heaven be with you;
pray for me,” and the diminishing chorus of
Saracen’s hoofs on the road. She trembled
so much during this torment that she feared to shake
the bed. Very weakness at last took pity on her;
she swooned asleep again, this time dreamless.
The fat nun getting up for Prime, also took enough
pity upon her to let her he. So it was that Prosper
left Gracedieu.
CHAPTER XII
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.
Copyrights
The Forest Lovers from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
