Through the days of rain and falling leaves, when all the forest was
sodden with mist; through the dark days of winter, hushed with snow,
she stayed with the nuns, serving them meekly in whatever tasks they
set her. She was once more milk-maid and cowherd, laundress again,
still-room maid for a season, and in time (being risen so high) tire-
woman to the Lady Abbess herself. Short of profession you can get no
nearer the choir than that. It was not by her tongue that she won so
much favour--indeed she hardly spoke at all; as for pleasantness she
never showed more than the ghost of a smile. "I am in bondage," she
said to herself, "in a strange house, and no one knows what treasure I
hide in my bosom." There she kept her wedding-ring. But if she was
subdued, she was undeniably useful, and there are worse things in a
servant than to go staidly about her work with collected looks and
sober feet, to have no adventurous traffic with the men-servants about
the granges or farms, never to see nor hear what it would be
inconvenient to know--in a word, to mind her business. In time
therefore--and that not a long one as times go--her featness and
patience, added to her beauty (for it was not long before the gentler
life or the richer possession made her very handsome), won her the
regard of everybody in the house.
The Abbess, as I have told you already, took her into high favour
before Christmas was over--actually by Epiphany she could suffer no
other to dress her or be about her person.
She loved pretty maids, she said, when they were good. Isoult was
both, so the Abbess loved her. The two got to know each other, to take
each other's measure--to their reciprocal advantage. Isoult was very
guarded how she did; what she said was always impersonal, what she
heard never went further. The Abbess was pleased. She would often
commend her, take her by the chin, turn up her face and kiss her. A
frequent strain of her talk was openly against Prosper's ideas: the
Abbess thought Prosper a ridiculous youth.
"Child," she would say--and Isoult thrilled at the familiar word
(Prosper's!)--"Child, you are too good-looking to be a nun. In due
season we must find you a husband. Your knight seemed aghast at the
thought that salvation could be that way. Some fine morning the young
gentleman will sing a very different note. Meantime he is wide of the
mark. For our blessed Lord loveth not as men love (who love as they
are made), nor would He have them who are on the earth and of it do
otherwise than seek the fairest that it hath to give them. Far from
that, but He will draw eye to eye and lip to lip, so both be pure,
saying, 'Be fruitful, and plenish the earth.' But to those not so
favoured as you are He saith, 'Come, thou shalt be bride of Heaven,
and lie down in the rose-garden of the Lamb.' So each loves in her
degree, and according to the measure of her being; and it is very well
that this should be so, in order that the garners of Paradise may one
day be full."