The good woman chuckled at her thoughts over all this irony of events.
"I might do son Falve a sorry turn," she pursued, "if I would. I
should get paid for it in minted money, and Saint Mary knows how
little of that has come my way of late. And I dare say that you would
not take the exchange for a robbery. A lord for a smutty collier." She
looked slyly at Isoult as she spoke. The girl's eyes wide with fear
made her change her tune. If the daughter-elect were loyal, loyalty
beseemed the mother.
"What!" she quavered, "you are all for love and the man of your heart
then? Well, well! I like you for it, child."
Isoult's heart began to knock at her ribs. "Can I trust her? Can I
trust her?" she thought; and her heart beat back, "Trust her, trust
her, trust her."
With bed-time came her chance. The old woman, whose geniality never
endangered her shrewdness, bid the girl undress and get into bed
first. The meek beauty obeyed. She was undressed, but not in bed, when
there came a rain of knocks at the door.
"Slip into bed, child, slip into bed," cried the other; "that's a man
at the door."
Isoult, half-dead with fright, once more obeyed. The knocking
continued till the door was opened.
"Who are you, in the name of Jesus?" said the woman, trembling.
"Jesus be my witness, I come in His name. I am Brother Bonaccord,"
said a man without.
"Save you, father," the woman replied, "but you cannot come in this
night. There's a naked maid in the room."
Isoult's plight was pitiable. She could do absolutely nothing but stay
where she was. She dared not so much as cry out.
"If she is a maid, it is very well," said Brother Bonaccord; "but I am
quite sure she is not."
"Heyday, what is this?" cried Falve's mother, highly scandalized.
"Listen to me, Dame Ursula," the friar went on with a wagging finger.
"Your son came with gossip of a marriage he was to make with a certain
Isoult--"
"'Tis so, 'tis so, indeed, father. Isoult la Desirous is her name--a
most sweet maid."
"No maiden at all, good woman, but a wife of my own making."
"Ah, joys of Mary, what is this?"
"Ask her, mistress, ask her."
"I shall ask her, never you fear. Stay you there, father, for your
life."
"Trust me, ma'am."
Dame Ursula went straight up to the bed and whipped off the blankets.
There cowered the girl.
"Tell me the sober truth by all the pains of Dies Irae,"
whispered her hostess. "Are you a maiden or none?"
It was a shrewd torment that, double-forked. To deny was infamy, to
affirm ruin. However, there was no escape from it: Isoult had never
been a learned liar.