Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (414 page)

“Such, nevertheless, is my desire,” Mr. Sorrell said obstinately. And then, his troubles overcoming him, he began to speak with an eloquence that he had never really known before.

“Sir,” he said, “this desire is so strong in me that I am a changed man. I no longer know myself. At night I cannot sleep for thinking of it, and by day I can give no attention to matters which should occupy my thoughts. I find myself sighing and groaning when I walk alone in the fields.”

‘“I think you do not walk very often alone in the fields,” the Dean said pleasantly.

“In short,” Mr. Sorrell continued, “my nights are unbearable, and my days are like my nights, so that if I cannot find relief I think I shall lose my reason.” Leaning back in his chair, the Dean continued to smile pleasantly and amiably.

“Well, I have heard the tales of many lovers, and they are all much alike — all tales of sighing and groaning and sleepless nights, and walking alone in fields, and complaining and calling upon death to end their pains.”

“But I have never called upon death,” Mr. Sorrell said. “I desire to have life and peace.”

“That is the most godly thing I have heard you say,” the Dean commented, “for most lovers desire self murder, which is a mortal sin against the laws of the Church. But this is a very whimsical and comical affair, for most lovers complain and call upon death because their ladies are ungentle, do not give ear to their suits, spurn their lovers, or are shut up in strong castles by fathers, mothers, or cruel and ungentle husbands. But you sigh and groan because of obstacles that you yourself have set up to the crowning of your desires. Now tell me this. You have had, since you have been here, many amourettes with ladies who were not married, but I have not heard that for these you desired the sanction of the Church.”

“Oh, my God,” Mr. Sorrell said, in tones which exhibited both shame and horror, “how can you mention these things in the same breath with my passion for this lady, who is like a thing holy and set apart? Since I have known her well....”

“Yes, yes,” the Dean interrupted, “I have heard of such feelings, but I have never known them fall so suddenly upon any sinful man.”

“It has been like a thunderbolt,” Mr. Sorrell said, “like an avalanche.”

“I do not know what an avalanche is” the Dean answered, “but indeed it has been very sudden. And I might congratulate you upon your return to a greater chastity of life were it not that I foresee, arising from that sudden change, a great many troubles for this gentle lady whom I regard as my ward. That you were preparing for some such step I was well assured; but I thought it would rather have been that, getting yourselves into disguises and laying hands upon such money as you may take, you would have gone away together to other lands.”

“That, too, we had thought of,” Mr. Sorrell said; “but you will admit that it is much more satisfactory to put matters upon a proper footing. The responsibility would have been too great. How could I take her bright and splendid life into my hands, when for all I know at any moment I may disappear back to where I came from?”

“But supposing that marriage is broken, and you yourself married to her,” the Dean asked, “what would the marriage profit her if you should disappear, as you say, to the place from which you came?”

Mr. Sorrell passed his hands over his eyes. He was perplexed and worried. “Of course, it is not very much to offer her,” he said, “but she would at least have the benefit of a name and a position.”

The Dean shrugged his shoulders very slightly.

“Oh, I know,” Mr. Sorrell said,
“
it is miserably little to offer, but what can I do? As a gentleman I know I ought to go away, to take myself out of her life. But I have not the strength of mind; besides, where could I go to?”

The Dean appeared no longer to be listening to him. At last he said slowly:

“And how do the offerings of the faithful and the grateful come in?”

“In the last two weeks,” Mr. Sorrell said, “there have been brought to me innumerable pigs, sheep, eggs, cheeses, firkins of butter, and yards of cloth for the poorer sort of people, and from the better class, in the last fortnight, forty-seven pounds in gold and silver.” The Dean leant slightly forward.

“And the disposition of this gold and silver, and these beasts and food?” he asked.

Mr. Sorrell considered for a moment; having been prompted by Dionissia, he knew his ground very well. And this was business.

“Man of God,” he said slowly, and with unconcern, “as for the beasts, and the meat, these I have given to the Lady Blanche. And it has been decreed that if in the end the custody of the cross falls to the Lady Blanche, then these sheep and other beasts shall be considered to be hers, and the Lady Dionissia shall pay the Lady Blanche for the food and lodging of herself and men. For they are all now, for greater safety, and better to practise feats of arms, living in the castle of Stapleford.”

The Dean nodded his head slowly.

“So much I knew,” he said; “but if the cross falls to the Lady Dionissia?”

“Then,” Mr. Sorrell answered, “such beasts and food as the Lady Blanche has had shall be considered as the Lady Dionissia’s payment for her food and lodging.”

“That seems to be a very reasonable arrangement,” the Dean said. “But still, it appears to me that the Church is left out in the matter of geese and cheeses.”

“No, no,” Mr. Sorrell answered, “that too has been thought of. For I am aware that such miracles are in a sense Church matters, and that if I had not the sanction of the Church these things could not take place, for I might be turned away and discredited. So that already, as you know, we have made separate offerings of food and cloth to the chapter; and now such things come in so fast that the pigsties, the sheep-pens, the larders, the cellars, and the butteries of Stapleford Castle are all overflowing. And for the sustenance of the people of the castle one-fourth of these provisions is more than sufficient, so that three-fourths of them we will very willingly give to the chapter.”

“That is well for the chapter,” the Dean said. “But how is it as to the gold and silver?”

“For that,” Mr. Sorrell said, “in these six weeks I have had given me ninety pounds. In the first four weeks it was forty-three, in the last two, as I have told you, it was forty-seven. The forty-three pounds are in a bag which is carried by one of the Lady Dionissia’s retainers. It is now in the city of Salisbury, and will presently be brought here as an offering to the Church.”

The Dean leant still further forward.

“To the Church?” he asked.

“Man of God,” Mr. Sorrell said, “I am a stranger here, and it is with difficulty and only in a stilted manner that I speak the language. But I considered that the Church and the most eminent pillar of the Church are one and the same. So that when I said that these forty-three pounds would be given to the Church, I meant they would be given to yourself.”

The Dean nodded slowly.

“And for the future?” he asked.

“For the future,” Mr. Sorrell said, “we had determined to give in that proportion to the Church — that is to say, of every ninety pounds, forty-three.”

“It would be better,” the Dean said warily, “if the proportion were forty-seven to the Church, and forty-three to yourselves.”

Mr. Sorrell seemed to himself once more to be a publisher negotiating percentages with a bookseller.

“That, too, might be possible,” he said, “if your Holiness could bring about the dissolution of the Lady Dionissia’s marriage before the return of her husband from the war.”

The Dean considered for a time.

“That, I think, will be very difficult,” he said, “for at the most the gentle knights will be three months at the war, and the hearing of your cause at Rome will take a long time, even though I report most favourably upon it. And it is a fit and proper thing that the Church should have the major part. This will be a very difficult matter to argue.”

“It is not for me,” Mr. Sorrell said, “to dispute what is said by one so learned in the law of the Church, but I think, just because your Holiness
is
so learned, it should be a comparatively easy affair. For permit me to observe that it is more easy to dissolve a marriage that has already taken place, than it is to break the validity of a precontract of marriage. In short, if the Lady Dionissia should be now only precontracted to marry, instead of actually married to the Knight of Egerton of Tamworth, it would be much more difficult.”

The Dean gazed pleasantly at Mr. Sorrell.

“I perceive,” he said, “that you have not come here without being prompted by the Lady Dionissia as to what it is that you should say.”

“It is not my habit,” Mr. Sorrell answered, “to go to market without learning all that I can about the merchandise that I desire to buy, or how the sale should be conducted.”

“That, too, is very prudent,” the Dean said. He remained silent, and appeared to be pondering deeply for some little time, and then he brought out the words:

“You are aware of all that you desire to commit yourself to? There is, for instance, the Lady Blanche.”

“Why,” Mr. Sorrell answered, “it is true that there is the Lady Blanche. But she is a very unaccountable lady; it is so difficult to foresee what she will do that it is almost a waste of thought to attempt to prophesy. For that we must wait and see. But I hasten to assure your Holiness that my relations with the Lady Blanche have been of the most respectable kind. It is true that I have promised to enter into a commercial alliance with her — and I wish I had not — but nothing more than a few kisses have passed between us.”

“I am glad to hear that,” the Dean said; “but that is very unlike the Lady Blanche. What do you imagine that she is aiming at?”

“I have it from the Lady Amoureuse,” Mr. Sorrell said, “that the Lady Blanche considers my attachment to her cousin’s wife as a mere passing whim. She says that it is only a temporary clouding of my intellect. Her contempt for the Lady Dionissia is so extreme, that she imagines that very soon I shall tire of that lady, and in the meantime she is very busily engaged in teaching the page Jehan what sort of a thing is love. In short, she refuses to believe that my attachment to the Lady Dionissia is a matter of any moment at all.”

“That,” the Dean said, “is so exactly like the overwhelming pride of the Lady Blanche, that I daresay you are in the right of it.”

He reflected again for a moment, and then he said: “Besides that, there is the lady’s husband. How will you meet him?”

“If you will contrive it that the marriage, which is no marriage, shall be dissolved before his return, I trust,” Mr. Sorrell said, “that I may never meet him. But if this cannot be done, we trust that the surrendering to him of the Lady Dionissia’s dowry may content him; or, if this will not content him, there will be nothing for it but for me to meet him as one man meets the other. But I should think that the surrender of the dowry should be sufficient to content him, for, since he has never seen the Lady Dionissia, he cannot be suspected of any violent attachment to her. And if he enjoys the possession of the dowry, and is in a position to marry another lady with another dowry, surely he should be very well contented.”

The Dean asked then:

“And if you marry the Lady Dionissia, how will you support her? In what castle will you live, and how will you feed the necessary retainers?”

Again Mr. Sorrell passed his hand down his face.

“A little time ago,” he said, “that would have seemed the most easy question in the world to answer. And, indeed, it should seem so still. You would say that it should be the easiest thing in the world for me — for a modern man with all my knowledge — to occupy very soon a commanding position in these barbarous, ignorant, and superstitious times. I confess that I see more difficulties than I expected. But my time and thoughts have been so taken up by other things that I have hardly given the subject any real attention. When I come to do so I have no doubt that it will be easy enough.”

“I understand almost none of the words you have uttered,” the Dean said. And, indeed, Mr. Sorrell, finding English-French at all times a little confusing, had dropped into the language which had been most familiar to him in the Paris of his day.