rochester city had been stormed on the vigil of good friday, but de warenne still held the castle, and two great sussex lords, william de braose of bramber, and john fitzallan of arundel were with him. they knew that the king was on the march; nor was earl simon to remain much longer before the walls, for henry forced him to raise the siege by threatening london with his host. it was waleran de monceaux who brought the news of the king’s march, and aymery, who rode into rochester but a day behind his brother-in-arms, found de montfort preparing for a retreat. their spears were rolling on london when the next dawn came up behind the great tower of the castle, for london was the heart of england that year, and a sudden stab from the king’s sword might have let the life-blood out of the cause.
earl simon and the barons’ men marched through kent, and pushed in between the king’s host and the city. the londoners rang their bells, and came shouting over the bridge to bring the great earl in. the burghers had been busy since the rejection of king louis’ award. they had imprisoned some of the king’s creatures on whom they had been able to lay their hands, and sacked and devastated the royalist lands in surrey and kent. the week before palm sunday the jewry had been stormed, its inmates massacred, and great treasure taken. london had pledged itself in blood, and de montfort tarried there, waiting for men to gather to him from the four quarters of the land.
while the roads smoked with these marchings and counter-marchings, and while spears shone on the hill-tops, and steel trickled through the green, denise cheated death in that quiet valley amid the surrey hills. marpasse’s knife had turned between the ribs, missed the heart by the breadth of a finger nail, and let denise’s blood flow, but not her life. marpasse’s rough sense had saved her, marpasse who had saved the body, while aymery had been busy with the soul. and yet to the nuns denise’s return out of the valley of the shadows had seemed nothing short of a miracle. ursula, true to her belief, had seized the first glimmer of consciousness and sent for the priest who served the convent as confessor. but denise had put the good man off, pleading that she would not die, and that she was too weak to tell him so long a tale.
the first few days denise lay in her bed, very white and very silent, taking the wine and food they brought her, and speaking hardly a word. she was like one half awakened from sleep, able to feel and think, but with the languor of sleep still on her. she felt that it was good to lie there in peace, aloof from the world, with the quiet figures gliding in and out, and the sunlight moving in a golden beam with the floor of the little room for a dial. the ringing of the convent bells came to her, and the singing of the nuns in the chapel. denise lay very still through the long hours in a haze of dreamy thought.
how much did she remember? enough to inspire her with a new desire to live, enough to make her realise how mad had been the impulse that had set marpasse’s knife a-flashing. they seemed so far away, and yet so near and intimate, those happenings in the april woodland. in moments of deep passion the human heart seizes on what is vital and utterly true, even as those who are dying sometimes seem to see beyond the bounds of the material earth. so denise remembered that which a woman’s heart would choose to cherish. it had been no mere golden mist of pity glazing the cold truth. she had lain in aymery’s arms, arms that had held her with something stronger than compassion.
thus as denise lay there abed, a slow, sweet faith revived within her, a belief in things that had seemed dry and dead. her woman’s pride had been in the dust, and she had given up hope, save the hope of hiding in some far place. it might have been that aymery’s arms had closed an inward wound, and that the strength of his manhood had given her new life.
what had the “afterwards” been? what had happened after she had lost consciousness, and what had become of aymery and marpasse. she longed to ask the nuns these things, and yet a sensitive pride tied her tongue. the women were kind to her, and yet, as denise’s consciousness became more clear, she could not but feel that the eyes that looked at her were inquisitive and watchful. now and again came a note of pitying tolerance that jarred the rhythm of her more sacred thoughts; and as the woman in her grew more wakeful she became aware of the shadows that stole across her mind.
on the third day the nuns unswathed her body, soaked the clotted pad away, and looked at the wound. it was healing miraculously with nothing but a blush of redness about its lips. there had been no fever, no inward bleeding. denise could sit up while they reswathed her in clean linen.
“there is cause for thankfulness here,” said the elder of the two nuns who had the nursing of her; “you will have many prayers to say, and many candles to burn to our lady and the queen helena, our saint.”
she spoke with brisk patronage, but denise took it for the spirit of motherliness in the woman.
“i owe you also a debt,” she said, looking up into the nun’s face.
the sister licked her lips as she smoothed the linen about denise’s breast.
“the man and the horse are also to be remembered,” she said, a little tartly, “you have much to be thankful for; even i can tell you that.”
there was a sharpness in her voice, and a certain insinuating and inquisitive look on her face that made denise colour. the woman was watching her out of the corners of her eyes, as though she were quite ready to listen if she could persuade denise to talk. minds that are cooped up in sexless isolation are often afflicted with morbid imaginings, and an unhealthy curiosity with regard to the more human world. the monastic folk were prone to a disease that they called “accidia.” the life was very dull, very narrow, and led to introspection. what wonder that a woman should sometimes hanker to dip her spoon into the world’s pot, and smell the stew, though she was not suffered to taste it.
denise was thankful, and at peace, but she had no desire to open her heart like a french tale for these women to pore over. the nun won no confession from her, and therefore thought the worse of denise’s soul. people who were silent had much to conceal, and the religious sometimes prefer a vivid and garrulous sinner to one who cherishes a reserve of pride.
the two nuns were but mead and water when compared with their prioress, who was sharp and biting wine. the miraculous swiftness with which denise had been healed flattered st. helena, and the piety of her convent. ursula the prioress was an earnest woman, cold, bigoted, well satisfied with her own spirit of inspiration. she began to see in denise a brand to be snatched from the eternal fire, a soul to be humbled and chastened, and purified of its sin.
on the fifth day of denise’s sojourn there, one of the nuns bent over her, and told her in an impressive whisper that the prioress was coming to sit beside her bed.
“be very meek with her, my dear,” said the nun, “and if she speaks sharply to you, remember that it is for the good of your soul.”
so ursula came, white wimple about yellow face, severe, admonitory, stooping very stiffly towards the level of this mere woman. she sat down on the stool beside denise’s bed, and began at once to catechise her as she would have catechised a forward child.
denise went scarlet at the first question. it was flashed upon her without delicacy that ursula knew her secret, and that either aymery or marpasse had told her something of what they knew. and denise’s pride was not so frail and weak that she could suffer ursula to take her heart and handle it.
“madame,” she said, “i have much to thank you for. yet i would ask you not to speak of what is past. being wise in the matter, you will know what my thoughts must be.”
ursula was not to be repulsed in such easy fashion, for she knew a part of denise’s tale, and had decided in her own mind that aymery had treated the subject with too much chivalry. compassion had softened the harsher outlines, and ursula had no doubt that denise was less innocent than she may have pretended.
“my daughter,” said she, “for the good of your soul, i cannot let such things pass unheeded.”
denise lay motionless, staring at the timbers of the roof. ursula talked on.
“our mother in heaven knows that we are frail creatures, and that sin is in the world, but it is the hiding of sin that brings us into perdition. it is meet for your penitence that i should speak to you of these infirmities. there is no shame so great that it may not be retrieved. but you must own your sin, my daughter, and humble yourself before heaven.”
denise’s hands moved restlessly over the coverlet.
“i have confessed it,” she said, “though it was not of my own seeking. god himself cannot condemn that as a lie.”
ursula’s face grew more austere and forbidding. she detected hardness and obstinacy in denise, and overlooked that sensitive pride that may seem reticent and cold.
“you speak too boastfully,” she said. “it may be that god wills it that i should bring you to humbleness and a sense of shame.”
“it is the truth, that i have suffered,” said denise.
“not yet perhaps, have you suffered sufficiently, for the proper chastening of the spirit. think, girl, of god’s great goodness, and the compassion of our mother, and st. helena, in snatching you from death, and the flames, you—one who had fallen, a broken vessel by the roadside, the companion of low women——”
again denise’s face flashed scarlet, but this time there was anger in the colour.
“madame,” she said, “hard words do not bring us into heaven. i have never been what you would have me pretend to be. and the woman, marpasse, stood by me, and was my friend. she has a good heart, and for me, that covers a multitude of sins.”
ursula, cold fool, was instantly affronted.
“what!” and she seemed to smack her lips with unction, “you, who have worn the scarlet, speak thus insolently to me! it is plain that you have no sense of shame. hard words indeed are what you need, young woman, the bread of bitterness and the waters of affliction. pity for your soul moves me to speak the truth.”
the flush had faded from denise’s face. she lay there very pale and still, as though suffering ursula’s harsh words to pass over her like the wind.
“how is it, madame,” she said at last, “that you believe so much that is bad of me?”
ursula had her answer ready, the answer such a woman was destined to produce.
“earl simon’s knight warned me, as was but right and honest.”
“aymery!”
“sir aymery, would be more fitting. it was he who besought me to take you in, knowing your misery, and the madness that sin must create in the mind. pray to god that he may be blessed for snatching you from the devil, and for bringing you here, where, heaven being willing, we will humble and chasten you.”
denise lay there as though ursula had taken marpasse’s knife and stricken her, this time to the heart. she had nothing to say to the prioress. the woman’s hard morality had broken and bruised her re-born pride and hope.
ursula rose, and stood beside the bed.
“let the knowledge of sin and of humiliation sink into your heart,” she said.
and never did woman speak truer or more brutal words.
when ursula had gone, denise lay in a kind of stupor, mute, wondering, like one who has been wounded and knows not why. all her dreams were in the dust. ursula, the iconoclast, had broken the frail images of tenderness, mystery, and compassion. aymery had said this of her? denise had no strength for the moment to believe it otherwise.
and so she lay there, humiliated indeed, very lonely, and without hope. there was no bitterness in her at first, for the shock that had destroyed her vision of a new world, had left her weak and weary. she thought of aymery with pitiful yearning and wounded wonder, and with the wish that he had suffered her to die. marpasse alone might have comforted denise in that hour of her defeat.
