CHAPTER XXXVII
WHAT MOTHER SUB-PRIORESS KNEW
Mother Sub-Prioress had applied her eye, for the fiftieth time, to the keyhole; but naught could she see in the Prioress's cell, save a portion of the great wooden cross against the opposite wall.
Sister Mary Rebecca, mounted upon a stool, attempted to spy through the hole over the rope and pulley by means of which the Reverend Mother rang the Convent bell. But all Sister Mary Rebecca saw, after bumping her head upon a beam, and her nose on the wall, owing to the impossibility of getting it out of the way of her eye, was a portion of the top of the Reverend Mother's window.
She cried out, as a great discovery, that the curtains were drawn back; upon which, Mother Sub-Prioress, exclaiming, tartly, that that had been long ago observed from the garden below, pushed the stool in her anger, and sent Sister Mary Rebecca flying.
Jumping to save herself, she alighted heavily on the feet of Sister Teresa, striking Mary Seraphine full in the face with her elbow, and scattering, to right and left, the crowd around the door.
This cleared a view for Mother Sub-Prioress straight down the passage and through the big open door, to the cloisters; when, looking up—to scold Mary Rebecca for taking such a leap, to bid Sister Teresa cease writhing, and Mary Seraphine to shriek in her cell with the door shut, if shriek she must—Mother Sub-Prioress saw the Bishop, alone and unattended, walking toward them from the cloisters.
"Benedicite," said the Bishop, as he approached. "I am fortunate in chancing to find the whole community assembled."
The Bishop's uplifted fingers brought the nuns to their knees; but they rose at once to their feet again and crowded behind Mother Sub-Prioress as, taking a step forward, she hastened to explain the situation.
"My Lord Bishop, you find us in much distress. The Reverend Mother is locked into her cell, and we fear that, after a long night of vigil and fasting, she hath swooned. We cannot get an answer by much knocking, and we have no means of forcing the door, which is of most massive strength and thickness."
The Bishop looked searchingly into the ferrety face of Mother Sub-Prioress, but he saw naught there save genuine distress and perplexity.
He looked at the massive door, and at the excited crowd of nuns. He even gave himself time to note that the nose and lip of Seraphine were beginning to swell, and to experience a whimsical wish that the Knight could see her.
Then his calm, observant eye turned again to Mother Sub-Prioress.
"And why do you make so sure, Mother Sub-Prioress, that the Reverend
Mother is indeed within her cell?"
"Because we know her to be," replied Mother Sub-Prioress, as tartly as she dared, when addressing the Lord Bishop. "Permit me, Reverend Father, to recount to you the happenings of the last twenty hours.
"Soon after her return from Vespers, yestereven, the Reverend Mother sent word by Mary Antony that she purposed again spending the night in prayer and vigil, and would not be present at the evening meal; also that she must not, on any account whatever, be disturbed. Mary Antony took this message to the kitchens, bidding the younger lay-sisters to prepare the meal without her, saying she cared not how badly it was served, seeing the Reverend Mother would not be there to partake of it."
Mother Sub-Prioress paused to sniff, and to give the other nuns an opportunity for ejaculations concerning Sister Antony. But their awe of the Lord Bishop, and their genuine anxiety for the old lay-sister, kept them silent.
The Bishop stroked his chin, keeping the corners of his mouth firmly in place by means of his thumb and finger. Old Antony was delectably funny when she said these things herself; but she was delectably funnier, when her remarks were repeated by Mother Sub-Prioress.
"The old creature," continued Mother Sub-Prioress, eyeing the Bishop's meditative hand suspiciously, "then betook herself to the outer gates, told the porteress that she had your orders, Reverend Father, to report to you if the Reverend Mother again elected to pass a night in vigil and in fasting, because you and she—you and she forsooth!—were made anxious by the too constant fasting and the too prolonged vigils of the Reverend Mother. Mary Mark very properly refused to allow the old"——
"Lay-sister," interposed the Bishop, sternly.
Mother Sub-Prioress gasped; then made obeisance:—"the old lay-sister to leave the Convent. Whereupon Sister Antony sent Mary Mark to deliver the Reverend Mother's message to me, bribing her, with the promise of a gift from you, my lord, to leave her the key. When the porteress returned, Mary Antony was gone, having left the great doors ajar, and the key within the lock. She has not been seen since. Did she reach the Palace, and speak with you, my lord? Is she now in safety at the Palace?"
"Nay," said the Bishop gravely. "Sister Mary Antony hath not been seen at the Palace."
"Alack-a-day!" exclaimed Sister Abigail; "she will have fallen by the way, and perished! She was too old to face the world or attempt to reach the city."
"Peace, girl!" commanded the Sub-Prioress. "Thy comments and thy wailings mend not the matter, and do but incense the Lord Bishop."
Nothing could have appeared less incensed than the Bishop's benign countenance. But he had spoken sternly to Mother Sub-Prioress, therefore she endeavoured to put herself in the right by charging him, at the first opportunity, with unreasonable irritation.
The Bishop reassured Sister Abigail, with a smile; then, pointing toward the closed door: "Proceed with your recital, Mother Sub-Prioress," he said. "You have as yet given me no proof confirming your belief that the Prioress is within the cell."
"When the absence of Mary Antony became known, my lord," continued Mother Sub-Prioress, "we felt it right to acquaint the Reverend Mother with the old lay-sister's flight. I, myself, knocked upon this door; but the only reply I received was the continuous low chanting of prayers, from within; not so much a clear chanting, as a murmur; and whenever, during the night, nuns listened at the door, or ventured again to tap, the sound of the Reverend Mother's voice, reciting psalms or prayers, reached them. As you may remember, my lord, the ground upon the other side of the building is on a lower level than the cloister lawn. The windows of the Reverend Mother's cell are therefore raised above the shrubbery and it is not possible to see into the chamber. But Sister Mary Rebecca, who went round after dark, noted that the Reverend Mother had lighted her tapers and drawn her curtains. This morning the light is extinguished, the curtains are drawn back, and the casement flung open. Moreover at the usual hour for rising, the Reverend Mother rang the bell, as is her custom, to waken the nuns—rang it from within her cell, by means of this rope and pulley."
"Ah," said the Bishop.
"Sister Abigail, up already, thereupon ran to the Reverend Mother's cell; and, the bell still swinging, tapped and asked if she might bring in milk and bread. Once more the only answer was the low chanting of prayers. Also, Sister Abigail declares, the voice was so weak and faltering, she scarce knew it for the Reverend Mother's. And since then, my lord, there has been silence within the cell, and a sore sense of fear within our hearts; for it is unlike the Reverend Mother to keep her door locked, when the entire community calls and knocks without."
The Bishop lifted his hand.
"In that speak you truly, Mother Sub-Prioress," said he. "Also I must tell you without further delay, that the Prioress is not within her cell."
"Not within her cell!" exclaimed Mother Sub-Prioress.
"Not within her cell!" shrieked a score of terrified voices, like seagulls calling to each other, before a gathering storm.
"The Prioress left the Convent yesterday afternoon," said the Bishop, "with my knowledge and approval; travelling at once, with a sufficient escort, to a place some distance from Worcester, where I also spent the night. I have come to bring you a message from His Holiness the Pope, sent to me direct from Rome. . . . The Holy Father bids me say that your Prioress has been moved on by me, with his full knowledge and approval, to a place where she is required for higher service. Perhaps I may also tell you," added the Bishop, looking with kindly sympathy upon all the blankly disconcerted faces, "that this morning I myself performed a solemn rite, for which I held the Pope's especial mandate, setting apart your late Prioress for this higher service. She grieved that it was not possible to bid you farewell. She sends you loving greetings, her thanks for loyalty and obedience, and prays that the blessing of the Lord may ever be with you."
The Bishop ceased speaking.
At first there was an amazed silence.
Then the unexpected happened. Mother Sub-Prioress, without any warning, broke into passionate weeping.
Never before had Mother Sub-Prioress been known to weep. The sight petrified the Convent. Yet somehow all knew that she wept because, in the hard old nut which did duty for her heart, there was a kernel of deep love for their noble Prioress.
The other nuns wept, because Mother Sub-Prioress wept.
The sobbing became embarrassing in its completeness. Wheresoever the
Bishop looked he was confronted by a weeping nun.
Suddenly Mother Sub-Prioress dried her eyes, holding herself once more in control. It had just occurred to her that the Bishop's word could not be taken against the evidence of all their senses! On that very morning, at five o'clock the Convent call to rise had been rung from within the Prioress's cell!
So Mother Sub-Prioress dried her eyes, punished her nose for sharing in the general breakdown, and looking with belligerent eye at the Bishop, said: "If the Reverend Mother be not within her cell, perhaps it will please you, my lord, to inform the Convent who is within it!"
"That point," said the Bishop, "can speedily be settled."
He took from his girdle the Prioress's master-key, handed over to him before he left Warwick.
Fitting it into the lock, he opened the door of the cell, and entered, followed by the Sub-Prioress and a crowd of palpitating, eager nuns.
A few paces from the door the Bishop paused, signing to Mother Sub-Prioress to come forward, but restraining, with uplifted hand, those who pressed in behind her.
The chamber was very still.
The chair of the Prioress was empty.
But, before the shrine of the Madonna, there lay, stretched upon the floor, the unconscious form of the old lay-sister, Mary Antony.