VII
On the day of his first Mass Antonio rose at dawn and climbed the spiral stairway to his bench on the roof of the cloister. A cardinal, three bishops, and two abbots were sleeping within the abbey walls, and a duke and his duchess were up at the guest-house. The monk yearned for solitude after a distracting week, and the cell was too narrow for his expanding and aspiring soul.
Muffled in a warm new cloak which young Crowberry had forced upon him in Lisbon, Antonio bent his whole mind and soul to the ineffably sacred and glorious Work which lay before him. At last, after all these years of dogged battle, he had won the fight. At last the dead Abbot's prophecy was about to be fulfilled, and he, Antonio, was about to break the most holy Body and to hold up in the great chalice the most precious Blood.
To his dismay he found it difficult to meditate steadfastly upon God's unspeakable Gift. Try as he would, he could not concentrate an undivided mind upon the crowning mystery of faith. That his thoughts should wander a little on the morning of such an anniversary was perhaps natural; but somehow every thought led back to Isabel. He rebuked himself sharply, and forced his mind once more to pious thinkings. He called to memory the holy Francis of Assisi who died a deacon, and the holy Benedict who died a layman. If these two saints, who stood so high among all the saints of the universal Church, had never presumed to offer the Holy Sacrifice, how could he, Antonio, who had lived less than ten years in religion and more than forty in the world, dare to say this Mass?
Despite his efforts to dislodge it, the thought of Isabel neither moved nor weakened. Words which she had spoken on the last afternoon at the cascade rang like bugles through his brain. In terrible wrath and bitterness she had cried: "I will come back! You will succeed. You will regain the abbey. You will fill it with monks. But remember. I will come back. On the day of your triumph I will be there. It isn't only you Southern people who love revenge. I will be there. I will come back!"
He rose from the bench and gazed at the calm Atlantic, glittering under the first sunbeams. But he could not banish the echo of her words. Isabel was coming back! Not for revenge. Ever since the end of his second novena to Saint Isabel he had rested quietly in a firm confidence that his prayers for Isabel Kaye-Templeman had been granted, and that his great hope had been fulfilled. She was coming back, not in hatred, but in peace.
No. All this was folly, and worse. How could she come back? How could she, after twenty years, find out what was happening in a corner of distant Portugal? The very idea was madness. Nevertheless Antonio could not drive it away. He descended to his cell, but her invisible presence seemed to fill it; and it was only in the chapel that he firmly regrasped the threads of his inward preparations for the coming Sacrifice.
Eager whisperings in the nave drove him back to his cell. Lay folk from far and near were beginning to arrive. All of them had risen before daybreak, and some of them had been tramping all night. Throughout the country-side an exaggerated account of Antonio's acts and sufferings had sustained so much embellishment that he was already being venerated as a saint of heroic virtue. Had he not, simply by praying in the Navares church, caused an English lord to spring up, so to speak, out of the earth with fifty contos of reis, all in gold? Had he not cast a devil out of the shaggy, wild-eyed José? Had he not withstood the rich and beautiful Margarida? Had he not wrought the indisputable miracle of changing common wine into champagne simply by standing a bottle on its head? Had he not driven away from the azulejos the stiff Englishman with the icy, golden-haired daughter, all by a supernatural spell of holy anger? And, to crown all, was he not making a cardinal and three bishops to grow where never more than one bishop had grown before?
A little later the mere sightseers were reinforced by files of devouter worshipers whose Christian souls had glowed and burned at the tale of Antonio's faithfulness; and, by degrees, the reverential expectancy of these more earnest spirits hushed all unseemly shufflings and whisperings. According to Portuguese custom there were no seats, and everybody knelt on the floor. As the nave became more crowded the strange silence became deeper. It was broken at last by the unrestrained sobbing of the widow Joanna Quintella, who was suddenly filled with bitter remorse for having fastened upon Antonio his nickname of "the abbey miser." Her example was too much for the weaker wills, and one after another joined her in weeping.
The cardinal and the bishops, whose visit was unofficial, had stipulated that they should not be expected to make a ceremonious entrance or to bear themselves with any appearance of defiance towards the obsolescent laws against the Orders. They seated themselves without ostentation in stalls which were only distinguished from the stalls of the monks by thin cushions and kneelers stuffed with straw. There, with bowed heads, they prayed not only for Antonio and for the restored Benedictine life of Portugal, but also for a renewal of the fervor with which each one of them had said his first Mass long years before.
On the stroke of ten the sacred ministers emerged from the sacristy. As his assistant priest Antonio was accompanied by one of the new community, a young Benedictine from Brazil. A Franciscan from a restored house in Entre Minho e Douro was deacon, and the sub-deacon was the village cura. The servers were José and Brother Cypriano, last of the old lay-brethren, who had arrived the night before from Evora.
As Antonio appeared a murmur of awe escaped from the intent crowd in the nave. The monk had recovered his power of concentration, and his face was not like the face of a mortal man. But he moved forward, all unconscious that the people were not pleading with God for mercy upon him as a poor and presumptuous sinner.
To make a way to the sanctuary the acolytes had almost to push through the people; and at one point the procession was brought to a momentary halt. Instantly a handsome woman, whom Antonio remembered as one of the belles of Senhor Jorge's serão, held up a puzzled, big-eyed child and said, in eager tones loud enough for the monk to hear:
"Look, little one, look! It is a saint that is passing by!"
At the same moment a rough young farmer bent forward and clumsily kissed the hem of Antonio's chasuble. The monk recoiled and almost let the sacred vessels fall. The man's touch and the woman's words had cut him like knives. A saint! He, Antonio the hard, the proud, a saint! All the selfishness of his life rose up before him. His long coldness to José; his persistent aloofness from the life of the village which he ought to have shared and uplifted; his whipping and driving of Isabel with whips of rebuke and argument when he ought to have led her with silken cords of sympathy; his repeated refusals of charity when a little more fasting and a little more labor would have enabled him to feed the hungry; his self-esteem; his want of meekness under opposition and insult—these, all these, were the solid facts of his life, standing up as gaunt and huge as monstrous rocks with only one poor shrunken runnel of love trickling down between. A saint! If the sacred vestments had not been hanging from his shoulders he would have cried, "No, good people, no! Pray for me. I am the poorest sinner of you all."
The crucifer cleared a passage through the kneeling, murmuring, weeping people, and the procession moved on, picking a way among the broad-brimmed hats and wallets of provisions which lay on the pavement. After making five or six yards of progress it came to a halt again. His pious preoccupation could not wholly blind Antonio's eyes to the picturesqueness of the sight. The many-colored kerchiefs of the women, the rich olive skins and glossy black hair of the children, and the bright waistbands of the men were made ten times more sumptuous by the cool, monotonous background of blue-and-white azulejos. Here and there a knot of shepherds, in sheepskins, knelt with their long staves rising up like spears above the heads of an army. Two or three fans moved languidly, like gaudy flowers swaying in a breeze. Straight ahead, beyond the black monks and the purple prelates, rose the high altar, with the Virgin and her Child enthroned above the soft flames of six tall candles, set in candle-sticks of burnished gold.
As the procession resumed its march Antonio's glance was suddenly seized by a sight which almost made him stumble. Close to the wall, beside the cloister doorway, knelt Isabel. Her form was enveloped in an exquisitely fine dust-cloak of silver-gray, and a black lace mantilla covered her head. Yet, even before he saw her face, he knew that it was she. The cherubs in the azulejos above the doorway seemed to be looking down upon her curiously, as if they found in her something different from common clay. Her gaze was fixed upon the ground.
Recovering his self-control by a supreme effort, Antonio advanced to the sanctuary and made the due obeisances. Then he knelt down before the altar. No one wondered that his silent prayer was long; for was he not a saint and was not this his first Mass? The silence was profound from one end of the chapel to the other.
But Antonio's prayers were not what the onlookers thought. Isabel had come back; and, according to his practice, it was necessary to face the fact squarely in the light of common prudence. For nearly twenty years he had cherished one great hope concerning her until it had become a belief. For nearly twenty years he had given thanks to Saint Isabel for her miraculous intercession. But it was possible that, for nearly twenty years, he had been hugging a delusion.
"On the day of your triumph I will be there." So she had spoken; and she was keeping her word. "It isn't only you Southern people who love revenge." So she had stormed on; and perhaps it was for revenge that she was come. With a sickening of heart Antonio suddenly remembered reading in the Villa Branca paper a sordid story of a passionate woman in Sicily who had murdered a virtuous young priest on the steps of the altar. He remembered also young Crowberry's account of the throwing of a bomb at the new Emperor Napoleon in Paris. So far as he knew, such deeds were un-English; and, although Isabel was imperious, he could not credit her with a smoldering Latin vindictiveness leaping up into a fiery blaze of showy crime. Yet, after all, he knew so little of women, so little of the new hysteria which men told him was rife in the world.
What ought he to do? For himself and for his own life he did not care. His work was done; and if God willed that he should add the poor offering of his own blood to the infinite worth of the immaculate Host, he was ready to pour it forth. But what if there should be scandal, or, worse still, sacrilege? Or what if some desperate deed should wreak pain or death upon the innocent people? Ought he to rise from his knees, and to implore the prelates to grant him immediate audience in a place apart? With the whole might of his soul he besought Saint Isabel to intercede for him and to show him God's will.
A child in the nave let fall a rosary of copper beads. At the noise of the metal on the stone Antonio rose up. An inward voice bade him say his Mass and leave the rest with God. Making the sign of the cross, he invoked the Triune Name and said, in a clear voice, "Introibo ad altare Dei."
At the Confiteor his earnestness was so terrible that the subdeacon shrank back, understanding for the first time the blackness and foulness and meanness of the smallest sin against the eternal holiness and majesty and love. Even in the nave, where it was impossible to hear Antonio's voice or to see his face, the poignancy of the monk's Confiteor made itself felt. Like ripe corn bowing before a wind, the most hardened and careless bent lower and yearned forward in an anguish of contrition for forgotten sins; and when Antonio pronounced the words indulgentiam, absolutionem et remissionem the whole chapel respired one great sigh, as if a merciful king had just ended the suspense of a culprit condemned to death. At the Gloria all hearts soared up like birds to hymn the good God in the heights.
After the first Gospel one of the bishops arose to preach. He recited for a text the words of Isaias, Dicam aquiloni, Da, et austro, Noli prohibere. Affer filios meos de longinquo, et filias meas ab extremis terrae: "I will say to the north, Give, and to the south, Hold not back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth." His magniloquent exordium was worthy of the bishop's reputation as the most eloquent preacher in the Peninsula. In stately periods he began to show how north and south had indeed given their sons to rebuild the Benedictine Order in Portugal. But, at such a moment, his eloquence jarred. He himself was the first to become convinced of its discordance; and, suddenly changing the key, he humbly asked the prayers of all on Antonio's behalf and went back to his place.
The Creed, which young Crowberry and his clerical friend had been brought up to regard as a penitential chain dragging at the human intellect, was sung more triumphantly than a battle-song or a national anthem, with all the eagerness of enthusiastic faith. When Antonio turned and said Orate, fratres, even the sightseers prayed.
At last Antonio began the Canon. At the commemoration of the living, Isabel was the chief burden of his prayer. Having prayed for her, he thrust her from his mind and pressed on to the supreme moment of the Consecration. Spreading his hands over the oblation, he raised his eyes to the ivory figure of the Crucified. As he gazed, scales fell from his eyes. He saw, as he had never seen before, the everlasting sacrifice which lay behind and around the cross of Calvary. He saw behind the Victim who hung dying for three hours on the first Good Friday, the Agnus qui occisus est ab origine mundi, "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." He saw the Sacerdos in tetemum, "The Priest for ever," semper vivens ad interpellandum pro nobis, "ever living to make intercession for us." He understood that the unutterable miracle of which he, Antonio, was about to become the instrument was not a stroke of strange magic, but a gracious overflow of that everlasting intercession. From books he had known these things with his mind; but now he knew them with his whole soul. His priestly instrumentality, like the rod of Moses, was about to strike the Rock; but the bright stream waiting to gush forth was the everlasting love of the Redeemer, flowing onward in its fullness whether Mass was said or not. Yet the children of Israel had died of thirst had not Moses raised his rod; and it was through him, Antonio, a weak and unworthy priest on earth, that men were about to receive the supreme bounty of the Pontifex qui consedit in dextera sedis magnitudinis in cœlis, "the High Priest who sitteth on the right hand of the Majesty in heaven."
When he elevated the sacred Host, Cypriano was ready to ring the sacring bells; but awe stayed his hand. From the cardinal in his purple down to the poorest hind in his sheepskin, all adored the God of God and Light of Light. Every heart cried, Verbum caro factum est: "The Word is made flesh and is dwelling among us, and we are beholding His glory."
Antonio pronounced the words Simili modo and took the cup. At last God was fulfilling the old Abbot's prophecy: "I see Antonio standing before the high altar. I see him holding up our great chalice. I see him offering the Holy Sacrifice for us all." He raised the great chalice, with the blood-red rubies, which José had saved from the Viscount. Once again Cypriano tried to ring the sacring bell; once again the general awe restrained him. In deepest reverence all adored the precious Blood. Then burst forth the thankful cry Benedictus: "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord."
Very solemnly and intently Antonio made the memento of the dead, especially of the dead Abbot and the fathers and brethren of the old community. He had said the Pater Noster thousands and thousands of times before; but as he stood before the altar every one of its petitions ascended from his lips without a trace of formalism or staleness. And when the time came for him to receive the celestial Bread, his Domine, non sum dignus: "Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof," was not merely a devout reading of seemly words from the printed missal; it was an uttering forth of his inmost soul.
The sacrifice was consummated. He took the ablutions and covered the chalice. When the deacon had sung Ite, missa est, men and women who had never tried to sing the response before joined the choir of monks in thundering out a mighty Deo gratias. Then the prelates knelt to receive Antonio's blessing. The lordly cardinal was the first to kneel. He knelt as if he were the meanest altar-boy rather than a prince of Holy Roman Church, and all the others made haste to follow his example. The monk, in deepest humility, blessed the people.
Antonio's thanksgiving was less prolonged than his brethren expected. But when they crowded round to escort him to the place of honor in the refectory he begged most earnestly that the meal might proceed without him. To the fervid protests of the cardinal and the foreign abbots he responded that from the morrow onwards he would re-enter the path of unquestioning obedience; but, for the remainder of this one day he humbly sought leave to go and come as might seem him good.
As soon as he had wrung out a reluctant consent Antonio slowly crossed the cloister garden. Two or three of the new monks sprang forward to attend him; but he waved them aside and went on, with slow steps and bent head. A bell clanged, and they melted away. He quickened his pace until he gained the door with the secret lock; and, before the echoes of the bell had ceased humming in the still air, he was standing on the causeway outside the cloister.
Not since the night of the thunderstorm had he walked along those moss-grown slabs. At the end of the causeway, where he had lifted Isabel upon his shoulder, he hesitated a short moment. Then he stepped down and followed a woodland path until the soft thunder of the cascade boomed upon his ear. The earth under his tread was sweet and bright with thousands of May flowers, and the May birds sang as they had sung on the May morning of Sebastian's last Mass.
Not for twenty years had Antonio set foot within a furlong of the stepping-stones. But José had obeyed his orders to the letter. A few gaps in the trees had been filled up, but otherwise nothing was changed. As he climbed the path the dull pounding of the tumbling water drowned the crooning of the stream at his feet, and at last he caught the silvery flash of the cascade through the trees, like a great fish struggling in a basket of reeds. And the flash of the cascade was not all Antonio saw. He saw as well a fine silver-gray cloak thrown down on a flat boulder; and standing beside it, a nun of the Order of the Visitation.