“The habitation of God is with men,” he said briefly. “And perhaps it is easier for a hard heart to quicken where one man has”—he hesitated—“apprehended God.”
If that were so, then neither Fastrada’s daughter nor Reverend Mother was likely to leave that quickening. But this was spiteful. It was herself who was hard of heart. She lit Guibert’s candle, crossed herself, and came quickly out.
The infirmary was beyond the kitchen, and looked south. Sitting up in bed was a tiny bent figure, bowed over a kind of rude reading-desk. It looked up as the door opened, peering short-sightedly, as old and wrinkled and wise as a toad, with the same brilliant eyes. Heloise dropped on her knees beside the bed, and caught the meagre hand.
“Well, well,” said the toad.
“Oh, my dear,” said Heloise remorsefully. “And you are so thin. I think a lark would have legs like your wrists.”
“I know,” said Godric comfortably. “Like the chicken-bone the little boy held out to the witch. Short-sighted she was, just like me. My dear, I would not mind the legs going from me, if the eyes weren’t too. But it was Providence sent you this day. Look at this,” she pushed across the book over which she had been poring, a small quarto, stamped with the arms of Corbei. “Most of it is in a good hand, but at the last——”
“They have crowded it to get it all in,” said Heloise. Godric was like Gilles, in that quick escape from personal relations into clear dry air. She looked at the page where Godric had been reading. “Be careful in Italy when and where and how you eat, for Italy is a sickly country. Ah, but they were good days, when you and I sat quiet among the bookshelves.” She stopped, her eyes stinging in a quick surge of sorrow for the lonely patience of the old. Godric’s mouth was quivering, but it widened into a crooked smile.”
“We’re all like that, the old hens,” said she. “But tell me, Heloise, is it true that Master Peter says you are the best scholar he ever had?”
Heloise flushed. “It was a joke,” she said. Why must she go scarlet at the naming of his name? Godric would take it for diffidence: Reverend mother would not. “He said it to my uncle at supper one night, for fun. But you know what my uncle is like. He told everybody as if it were true.”
Godric nodded.
“But he did say to Gilles de Vannes,” went on Heloise manfully, “that I was the best-trained scholar he had ever had. And Gilles said he could well believe it, for the teacher who trained me was you.”
“Orgulous as a peacock,” said Godric. “That is what I shall be from this day. You have put another ten years on me in Purgatory. But what I want you to find is a different letter, to Argenteuil. Not from Alcuin. The Abbot of Corbei said there was one, written to Charlemagne’s daughter when she came here as Abbess, by Dungal.”
“Dungal? It is a strange name,” said Heloise.
“It’s common enough where I come from, in Donegal,” said Godric. “And he was an Irishman too. There’s a worse crowded page than that. It may be on it. Look at the very end.”
The infirmarian came in, looking a little scared. “Reverend Mother wants to know if you have the accounts ready, Godric, for she will be seeing the Steward this evening after Vespers.”
Godric made a face like a wicked little boy. “Tell Reverend Mother,” she said firmly, “that the sum for wine for the altar seems to me excessive and that I must look into it. But that she will have them by Nones.”
The infirmarian went out, with small assurance. Godric looked at Heloise, the corners of her wide mouth pulled down. “It was the book from Corbei—I clean forgot. Bring me that book from the window, child. I have them copied, but not checked.”
“Let’s do it together,” said Heloise. She laughed a little. “It is the one thing Master Peter is not good at,” she said, and the softness in her voice would have betrayed her to a quicker ear. “He can’t add.”
“I am not very good at it myself,” said Godric sadly.
“You read them out,” said Heloise, slipping her tablets from her girdle, “and I’ll put the figures down and add them.”
Godric grunted contentedly.
“To cakes for St. Martin’s and fresh herrings . . . XXXV S.
To wine bought before Easter LXV S.
To outlay for the archdeacon in wine and fish . . . XX S. IVd.
To xxviii quarts and a pint from Perrot Lachose for the Feast of St. Aubin XV S.
To xxxiiii cheeses bought at Pons . . . IX S.
To xiii pairs of shoes for the poor on Holy Thursday XV S. 6d.
To herrings, eggs and mustard pepper and other small things . . . XXV S.”
Godric looked up. “There’s the bell for Sext,” said she. “You must go to chapel. Do you think, child, you could make out that letter for me and copy it, this afternoon, maybe, when they’re all asleep? I can easily make shift to finish these myself. You’ll find a blank page at the back of the Blessed Gregory’s Dialogues. Reverend Mother will buy no more parchment. And indeed my hands are so twisted I would only spoil it if I had it. But leave it with me now.”
At the door the girl turned for a last look. Godric was stooped again above the Corbei manuscript, indomitable and solitary.
Heloise wakened with a start. She had fallen asleep, her head resting against the wooden shrine. It was darker than it had been, and she sprang to her feet in sudden panic, lest Jehan should have come, and gone without her. But it was only the haze above the river. The sun was still high, and she sat down again with a breath of relief. The book had fallen face downwards on the grass. She picked it up guiltily, and smoothed the crumpled page. “We keep the hour of Sext,” she read, “because at that time they crucified Him, and there was darkness over all the land . . . Of Vespers, propter Recessum Dei, because of the departing of God: and because at evening the Lord was made known in the breaking of bread.”
Recessum Dei. The afternoon had grown closer and yet more still; so still that the running of the river outside the wall was audible. It was like the noise Time might make, if one could hear it slipping away.
Recessum Dei, the departing of God. Heloise stirred uneasily, and looked up at the rough little Virgin suckling her child. It was very old, she knew; the face was almost square, and out of all proportion with the body. The hands were large, and the feet were hidden. Then came to her mind the memory of the broken marble foot that Gilles had in his chest. He had found it when he was a young man ferreting for rabbits among the gorse on Montmartre. There used to be a temple there to Mars, said Gilles, “and his goddess walked there in the early morning barefoot through the wet grass.” Abelard that morning had looked at her bare feet. She buried her face in the grass with a half-articulate cry. She had shivered when she saw his eyes that morning, and put her arm across her face. She was shivering now, but not with fear. “Perfect love,” the words that she had copied in the cloister that afternoon began rippling before her eyes, “casteth out fear. Wherefore——” she tried to halt them, for this was blasphemy, but the inexorable script ran on, “I beseech you that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” It was blasphemy, but her heart had risen to greet it. She had found her God. In him she lived and moved and had her being. He was the very firmament above her, the air she breathed. It was between her and the others, though they could not see it, a wall of glass, so that their voices came muffled through. Go back? She had never left him.
It was after sunset when they rode through the gate on the Grand Pont: it was slow in closing that night, for there were many coming and going with Michaelmas to-morrow. Fulbert was lighting his candle, and turned a troubled face upon her as she came in.
“My dear,” he said, “we had all given you up. I doubt you should not have gone away. Yes, yes, I know, my child, Gilles explained it all to me. But I fear Master Peter is greatly vexed, greatly vexed.”
He looked at her,
ingenuous and distressed.
“He came back after his lecture, for his dinner, you know, and missed you. And I told him all that Gilles had said, and made your excuses as well as I could. He asked would you be back for supper, and I said I thought you would. And we kept supper back. I did not like to tell him until then that you might be staying a few days. And he seemed put out, my dear, very much put out.”
“I am sorry, uncle,” said Heloise. “You see, Jehan had to come the long way home, by St. Denis, he could not get the ferry it Asnières.”
“I am sure it was not your fault, my dear. And I’m glad, very glad, you came back. You know, it is a great thing for a great clerk like him to give his time as he does to a child like you, and you must remember that, my dear. It is no wonder he was put out. I think, child, you had better wait up for him, till he comes in, and make your peace with him to-night.”
“Is he gone out?”
“He went out, after supper. And indeed he took none. I don’t know where he was going. He didn’t say. You’ll promise to wait up for him, my dear? You could get out your books, and make a show of studying, to please him.”
“I’ll go up at once, uncle,” said Heloise. Her heart was shaking through her.
“God bless you, little one,” said Fulbert. He walked across to his great bed, the candle a little unsteady in his hand. “Don’t be frightened, little heart.” He stood still, looking up at her. “You know he is quick, but he is soon cooled. Though indeed I was frightened myself.”
She stooped to kiss him, and climbed the stairs to her own room. For the first time in the ignorance and humility of her youth she had begun to realise how her flight might have moved him. Her eyes were blazing into the steel of her mother’s mirror as she sat unplaiting her long hair. For a moment she let the black river of it fall on either side of her face, then, frowning at her boldness, she plaited it again, and freshened her face in the gillyflower water that Audere had taught her to make at the convent. Stepping quietly, she went down the stair, opened the door of his great room, and crossing it, sat down on the window-seat to watch. But she got out no books. It was not by books she must appease his anger. The word trembled through her, exultant and afraid.
Sunset found Abelard at the ferry at Asnières. He had come out to meet them, striding hard: he would not let himself think that she would not come. But at Asnières, where the road, not much more than a bridle-track, came out on the river, and he looked across to the ferry-man’s hut, the dark forest behind it and the light already fading on the river, there was no hope in his heart. They would have been here long since if they had been coming that night; Jehan would never have left it so late as this. He stood, leaning against a tree, looking at the river, the dark blot of the ferry-boat moored on the farther side. No living thing stirred. It had been a red sunset; it was glimmering on the boles of the pine-trees, and on the parchment reeds across the river: the kind of sunset that made a man dream, not so much of a new Heaven as of a new earth, a turning of water into wine, of finer bread than can be made with wheat. And this night that was to have been his miracle, this night that he would have held all the sweetness of the world in his arms, this night that had set in upon the earth with such crimson pomp of light and mystery, was empty. She had left him, and had sent him no message, had written him no word.
He had been angry; but that was over now. He would be glad to be angry again. He had gone rigid with it, when old Fulbert told him first, stammering and repeating himself, and for a moment he had wondered if the old man had guessed and had packed her off to Argenteuil to secure her from him. But the agitation and distress of the good old soul were too genuine, and he had made a real effort to reassure him. Capricious was she, more practised than he had thought, to tantalise him at the last? His lip curled, but in the same moment his heart reproached him. It could not be. His memory brought her back as he had that morning seen her, barefoot with only her cloak about her, flushed and childish from sleep: and the thought of it brought such a sharp anguish upon him that he all but groaned where he sat. Colic, he said to Fulbert, watching him with distressed eyes: one was apt to be disordered these September days: and Fulbert, much relieved at the turn of the conversation, continued in that vein till Abelard rose, saying he had a message for Gilles and must see him before his afternoon lecture. His mouth set as he strode down the cloister. How far was Gilles, ironic spectator of the foolishness of lovers, responsible for this?
Gilles sat hunched in his chair. By not so much as the flicker of an eyelid did he acknowledge Abelard’s presence in the room. Abelard came and stood in front of him.
“Did you send Heloise to Argenteuil?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because she was eager to get away.”
It was a blow between the eyes. Abelard stood silent, taking order with it.
“When did she come to you?”
“This morning, before seven. Her uncle was at Mass. You, I imagine, at your lecture.”
“What did——” Abelard stopped. There were things he could not ask.
Gilles turned on him savagely. “She told me nothing. But she said that she wanted to get away—and quickly. That she must get away. She was shivering like a young sparrow on the ground. And I offered her Jehan’s escort to Argenteuil, and bade her stay as long as she cared to, telling her I would make all right with her uncle. And if she stays there for good——” He stopped, softened in spite of himself by the misery on the younger man’s face. Abelard turned without a word and blundered to the door.
“Peter,” called Gilles, suddenly relenting: but he was too late. He heard the heavy feet go down the stairs.
He had known then that she would not come back, but he would not think. He had lectured in a kind of sullen fury: had come back to supper, listened to Fulbert’s anxious twitterings in silence, eaten nothing, agreed with the old man that it was useless to expect her that night, and finally tramped downstairs and out of the house. Sit there he could not, and hear Fulbert rustling like a mouse until he went to bed. Guibert, about for once, was sitting mending his flute on the steps at the quay. He looked up, and a kind of timid understanding was in the dog-like eyes. Abelard cursed him. Had it come to this, that he was an object of pity to that water-rat?
“They will be late closing the gates to-night,” volunteered Guibert nervously, “it being Michaelmas Eve. I heard Jehan say it when he was saddling.”
Abelard flashed round. “Did you see him go?”
Guibert nodded. “I helped the young mistress mount. And Jehan said they were going and coming by Asnières, for it was the shorter road, so that they need not be leaving till after Vespers.”
Abelard looked at him, transfigured.
“There’s for a gaudy day to-morrow, Guibert,” said he, and threw a silver piece into his lap.
But the exaltation had soon passed. With every bend of the road to Asnières, his eye scanned the lap of road in front of him: there were a few on foot, and most of them going the other way: a cart or two creaking home: but none riding. On and on he strode, with the sky and earth a glory about him, his heart sick with hope: and now he stood there looking at the river.
The reeds that had been crimson paled to parchment again: the river flowed past, a small secret voice that seemed to grow louder as the light died from its surface. Abelard moved over to a baulk of wood where they moored the boats, and sat there, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped before him. It takes so short a while for light to go out. Only last night she was in his arms; and to-night the whole earth was empty. Back and forth went his mind on its ceaseless track. “A young sparrow on the ground——” Had he been rough with her, frightened her, his little one? It could not be that she would turn against all love for that. Or had her heart wakened and told her it was sin, and would she confess at Argenteuil and be held from him for ever? He could not think: his mind was too dazed a
nd sore. He was past questioning the reason of her flight, or reasoning with his own blind anguish. She had left him. She was not coming back. Now and then the memory of her as he had seen her that morning came upon him with the same knife-thrust of desire: but something deeper in him bled continually.
The dull thud of oars on rowlocks came through the twilight; he raised his head and looked up the river. The boat came in sight, a broad-bottomed clumsy craft, heaped with barrels. The men at the oars looked like lay brothers, but the man at the tiller had a tonsure: he could see the light gleam on the shaven patch. At the same moment the steersman caught sight of the figure on the river-bank and recognised it. The oars halted, and the boat floated silently on.
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