Lady Sybil's Choice: A Tale of the Crusades — John Shaqi
Lady Sybil's Choice: A Tale of the CrusadesHolt, Emily Sarah
History
Lady Sybil's Choice: A Tale of the Crusades
Holt, Emily Sarah
Crusades -- Fiction; Historical fiction
"Margot, how thou must listen to Father Eudes! I hear him mumbling away,
but I never bother my head with what he is saying. He has got to say
it; and I have got to sit there till he has done; that is all. I amuse
myself in all sorts of ways—count the bits of glass in the window, or
watch the effect of the crimson and blue light creeping over the stalls
and pillars, or think how Saint Agatha would look in a green robe
instead of a purple one. What makes thee listen to all the stuff he
says?"
"My Damoiselle sees that—saving her presence—I am a little like her. I
want to know."
"But Father Eudes never tells us anything worth knowing, surely!"
"Ha! Pardon me, my Damoiselle. He reads the true words of the good God
from the holy Evangels. Commonly they are in the holy Latin tongue, and
then I can only stand and listen reverently to the strange sounds: the
good God understands, not I. But now and then I suppose the blessed Lord
whispers to Father Eudes to put it into French for a moment: and that is
what I am listening for all the time. Then I treasure the words up like
some costly gem; and say them to myself a hundred times over, so that I
may never forget them any more. Oh, it is a glad day for me when Father
Eudes says those dear words in French!"
"But how thou dost care about it, Margot! I suppose thou hast so few
things to think of, and delight in—I have more to occupy me."
"Ah, my Damoiselle! The blessed Lord said that His good word was choked
up and brought no fruit when the cares of other things entered into the
heart. No, I have not much to think of but my work, and—three graves in
a village churchyard, and one——And I have not much to delight in save
the words of the blessed Lord. Yet—let my Damoiselle bear with me!—I am
better off than she."
"O Margot!" And I laughed till the tears came into my eyes. It was so
excessively absurd.
Marguerite took up the lamp.
"May the good God and His angels watch over my sweet Damoiselle," she
said.
And then she tucked the silken coverlet round me, and put out the lamp,
that the light should not keep me awake; and quietly undressed herself,
and got into the trundle-bed. And I was asleep almost before she lay
down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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