when a man has done what he believes to be a good deed he is flushed for a while with a happy self-righteousness, and may forget the struggle he had with his own soul. so it was with martin valliant. he had no quarrel with himself or with his loneliness for the rest of that day. he had won a victory; he had been tempted of the devil and had refused the meats that the devil had cooked for him.
strange—this fear of the white body or the lips of a woman, this naïve cowardice that dares not look into nature’s eyes. in it one beholds the despair of saints who see no hope for man save in the crushing of the body to save the soul. the few struggle toward a cold triumph, maimed, but half human. with holy ferocity they run about to persuade humanity that god is without sex. men may listen to them; the deserts become filled with monks; nature is flouted for a while. then the thing becomes no more than a rotten shell; men obey their impulses but still wear their vows; cynicism and a lewd hypocrisy are born; the great realities are glozed over. then comes the day when a more youthful and noble generation wakes to the horror of such a superstition. gates are torn off their hinges; walls battered down; the slime and the refuse exposed to the sunlight. the new generation runs to the woods and the fields like a flock of children released from some abominable pedantry. they are no longer afraid. the world grows young and beautiful again. there is no sin in the sunset, no shame in the singing of birds.
martin valliant felt himself uplifted all that day; but the old pagan people had gathered out of the woods and were lying hidden in the gorse and heather. there was pan with his pipes; there were girls and young men who had danced in the bacchic dances; orpheus with his lute. even the pale christ looked down with compassionate eyes, the great lover who was human till the fanatics covered his face with a veil of lies.
evening came, and the birds began their singing down in the beech woods under the hill. they sang their way into martin valliant’s heart, made him hear again the voice of the girl singing on the moor. a great restlessness assailed him. he went forth and wandered under the stars, but there was no healing for him in their cold brightness. and that night he slept like a man in fear of the dawn.
again, it was the birds which troubled him. he woke in the gray of the morning, to hear their faint orisons filling the valley. he arose, went to the chapel, and was long at his prayers. moreover, he chose to fast that morning, contenting himself with a cup of cold water before he wandered out over the moor.
yet in spite of all his carefulness martin valliant was not wholly his own master that morning. he made himself go forward, but a part of his soul kept looking back. there was a voice, too, that challenged him. “of what are you afraid? why are you trying to escape? a monk is a soldier. he should fight, and not hide himself.”
this voice would not be silenced. it was like a scourge striking him continually.
“go back,” it said; “blind men are afraid of falling.”
at last he obeyed it, vaguely conscious of the nearness of some new ordeal. he did not guess that the all-wise mater mundi had him by the hand, that he was one of her chosen children. she would try him with fire, teach him to be great through the power of his own compassion, so that his soul might burn more gloriously when the purer flame touched it.
martin valliant found the door of his cell standing open, and from within came the sound of the snapping of dry wood. a girl was kneeling by the oven, with a fagot lying on the floor at her side, and she was busy laying the fire for the baking of bread. she was dressed in a gown of apple green, and from the collar thereof her firm white neck curved to meet the bronze of her hair. so intent was she on breaking up the fagot wood and building her fire that she had not discovered the man standing in the doorway.
life had never yet posed martin with such a problem as this. he stood and stared at the girl, wondering how to begin the attack. her back was turned toward him, and the initiative was his.
then he became inspired. he would assume blindness, deafness, refuse to recognize her existence. he would not so much as speak to her, and behold! the problem would solve itself.
kate succory turned sharply at the sound of a man’s footsteps. her lashes half hid her roguish brown eyes; she held a hazel bough between her two hands; her green gown, cut low at the throat, showed the upper curves of her bosom.
she saw martin valliant take his mass-book from the shelf, sit down in the chair, and begin to read. he was within two yards of her, but for all the notice he took of her she might have been less than a shadow.
she watched him for some moments and then went calmly on with her work, breaking the sticks to pieces and feeding the fire. absolute silence reigned in the cell, save for the sound of the snapping of wood and the crackling of the flames in the oven.
martin’s eyes remained fixed on his book, but he was most acutely conscious of what was happening so close to him. the situation had taken on a sudden, unforeseen complexity. he felt himself growing hot about the face.
presently the fire appeared to be burning to the girl’s satisfaction. she rose, went to the larder, brought out the things that she required, and set them on the table. then she turned up the sleeves of her gown, and her arms showed white and shapely.
martin’s face was growing the color of fire. he tried not to see the girl, to anchor his whole consciousness to the square of parchment in front of him. the dilemma shocked him. was it possible that this creature in the green gown took his silence to be consenting?
meanwhile she went on calmly with her work, hardly looking in his direction, her red lips parting now and again in a smile. martin raised his eyes very cautiously and looked at her. the solid and comely reality of her shape, her purposeful composure, appalled him. this problem would have to be attacked somehow, desperately, and without delay.
the girl’s intuition forestalled his gathering effort toward revolt.
“it was foolish of you to burn those loaves yesterday.”
he stared at her with sudden, frank astonishment, but said nothing.
“good food should not be wasted like that. besides, i had come all that way to see what a pair of hands might do for you, father martin. no bread could have been cleaner; i always wash before baking.”
here was an amazing development! the girl was actually scolding him, reproving him for being wasteful, assuming control of the stores in his cupboard. he opened his mouth to speak, but again she forestalled him.
“father jude was a very careful soul. rose lorrimer had no trouble with him; she wept her eyes out when he had to go back to paradise. she had just made him two new shirts. and she did not mind the loneliness up here, for father jude is an old man, and rose has seen forty——”
martin valliant laid his mass-book on the table. kate succory was talking so calmly and so naturally that he knew she was to be believed; yet here was a new and astonishing phase of monastic life thrust upon him without a moment’s warning. martin was no innocent, though he had led a sheltered life; he knew that there were monks at paradise who had broken their vows. but here was this girl coming all the way from paradise village and turning up her sleeves to keep house for him as though she were doing the most natural thing in the world.
he floundered in the depths of his own simplicity.
“who sent you here, child?” he asked her bluntly.
kate’s brown eyes met his.
“i just mounted the gray donkey and came. no one could have bidden me sweep your hearth for you. rose lorrimer was hearth-ward to father jude, and before father jude father nicholas was here, and old marjory cared for him; but she was not old marjory then.”
she laughed, and began to mold the dough into shape, her arms all white with flour.
“rose took father jude’s sheets away with her, but if we can come by some good linen i will soon have things as they should be. of course, if i do not please you——”
she gave him a quick, sidelong glance, her teeth showing between her red lips.
martin valliant had gone as white as the dough she was kneading. his knees were trembling. he could not escape from the knowledge of her green gown, her shining hair, and the sleekness of her skin. and her voice was very pleasant, with a sly lilt of playfulness and of youth in its tones.
he gripped the arms of his chair and stood up.
“my child—” he began.
she gave him the full, challenging frankness of her brown eyes, and martin knew that he could not pretend that she was a child.
“it is very lonely here,” she said, looking at her hands, “and a man cannot do a woman’s work. rose told me that travelers passed no more than once a month. and—and i——”
he pushed his chair back, and groped with one hand for the cross that hung at his girdle.
“it is not good that you should be here.”
he saw her head droop a little. her hands rested on the table. he strove with himself, and went on.
“but i thank you, my sister. what i bear must be borne for the sake of the vows i have taken. when i kneel in the chapel, you shall be in my prayers.”
all the sly, provoking roguery had gone from her face. she did not speak for a moment, did not move. then she lifted her head and looked at him, and her brown eyes were like the eyes of an animal in pain.
“i am not a bad woman, father martin, not evil at heart. but——”
she caught her breath, and pressed her hands to her breasts.
“yes, i will go.”
she turned suddenly and walked straight out of the cell into the glare of the sunlight. and martin valliant stood biting the sleeve of his frock, and thinking of the look her brown eyes had given him.
