If the one who guards the gate can be won over to the side of the enemy, there is little hope for the garrison, however strong; and though Lady Katharine could make no impression on deaf old Ursula, who wielded her symbols of office with as much authority as the mother superior herself, yet in the person of the assistant who had been granted her on account of her infirmity, she found an excellent point of attack.
The convent porteress was not a nun, for it was her business to attend to all the out-door affairs, and thus keep up that connection between the recluses and the world they had abandoned which was necessary and convenient. It was her duty to purchase stores of provisions and clothing, to attend to the poor who came regularly to the door to receive their dole of charity, and to see that the tenantry of the convent lands paid their dues.
The young girl who assisted her in these often arduous tasks, and who hoped some time to take her place when sister Ursula had exchanged her seat in the entrance-gate for a more quiet resting-place in the crypt of the convent church, was the eldest daughter of dame Joan Redwood, a buxom lass of twenty summers, who had inherited much of her mother's good nature, but very little of her good sense. She was not a little superstitious, and very vain. Although the dress she wore was not entirely conventual, it gave no opportunity for displaying trinkets or bright colors; yet she loved nothing better than to gather a little store of bright kerchiefs and ribbons, in which she arrayed herself when quite alone, and marched up and down her little cell with the greatest complacency, though she never dared carry it any farther.
This had not escaped Kate's quick eyes, and she laid her plot accordingly. She surprised her one day when making her finest toilet, and having first frightened her with the idea that she would immediately report it to the abbess, she soothed her by the gift of a necklace of red beads, and made her her devoted follower from that moment.
The next day being a market day, the first face that presented itself at the wicket of the convent-gate was dame Redwood herself. She was standing beside a sturdy little pony, half hidden by two enormous panniers.
Her daughter's face was covered with blushes, caused partly by pleasure, and partly by the fear of a certain good-natured sort of scolding, which the dame thought it her duty to bestow whenever she had not seen any of her children for a time. She therefore put on her most demure look, and smoothed every fold in her apron before she descended from her post of observation to open the gate.
"A laggard as usual!" said the dame, shaking the snow from her wooden shoes, and running her quick little eyes all over her daughter's person to find the next best point of attack; and before they had gone far they encountered Lady Katharine's present, which the vain girl had put on under her kerchief, but had not sufficiently concealed. She pounced upon it, greatly to poor Phoebe's confusion.
"Ye idle spendthrift!" she said, "ye have been spending the half-noble your father gave ye for your new kirtle on these follies, have ye? Then ye shall go barebacked for all he shall ever give ye again!"
"Nay, mother, do not be angry; the half-noble is safe in the green purse. These are a gift from a noble lady, oh! so beautiful! and she is shut up here because she is a heretic. I don't know what that is, but she seems to me as good as the mother herself."
Now, mistress Redwood's errand to the convent, though ostensibly to sell her eggs, cheese, and milk to the cook, was really to find out what was going on in the house where the prisoners were confined, how they were treated, and, if possible, to open communication with them; thus fulfilling her contract with her husband and Bertrand, who having eaten and slept, had concluded, very wisely, to leave the first steps of the undertaking entirely to her. She did not wish to question her daughter directly, for fear of being overheard, or her remarks repeated; but she knew Phoebe very well, and was well aware that but little pressing was necessary to make her tell all she knew on the subject. She was a little surprised to hear that there was another Lollard prisoner there, and wished to find out something more about her; so she tossed up her head with an air of incredulity.